Return To The Past
by Ilizjon
Summary: Ash finished his Kalos adventure with a title of League Champion. He is thinking about his next destiny now. Will someone from the past help him to decide? What will happen during their journey?
1. Chapter 1

A beautiful sunset appeared on the plain blue sky above Coumarine City. Many wild Pokemon have already left the forest and were heading to the nearest beach to enjoy another warm day in Kalos region.

On the balcony in one of local hotels stood a sixteen years old trainer with his loyal yellow Pokemon. Ash Ketchum, newly crowned champion of Kalos league enjoyed the beautiful view, while having various thoughts in his head. Mainly, he thought of what to do next. The Kalos Conference has ended, he finally achieved his dream of winning a regional league and he had no idea where he could go next.

After twenty minutes of staring into the sky he turned back to his friend, specifically to a small electric mouse named Pikachu. This rodent was his first Pokemon and he travelled with Ash through all of his journeys. He was also his strongest Pokemon and he proved it in the finals, when he won against a Heatran, the Sinnoh legendary. He smiled to his trainer and jumped on his shoulder. The two of them walked back to their room and while Ash was packing all of his things back to his backpack, Pikachu finished up a bottle of ketchup, which was a present from his proud trainer after finals of Kalos League.

Ash left the room and started walking to the exit of the building. He went through a long hall decorated with mirrors and some kind of paintings. On one of them was an Aura Guardian with Lucario standing on a mountain. On the other wall was a picture of Palkia, Dialga and Giratina fighting Arceus. Both of them got attention from the raven haired trainer, who started feeling a déjà vu. He remembered all of his meetings with those Pokemon and wondered if he will meet them again someday. Pikachu patted his trainer in head with his small paw and pointed to the exit. Ash understood his Pokemon and went with him on the outside. Ash quickly realized that there was a familiar person sitting on a bench.

"Morning Ash, how was your sleep?" asked a blonde-haired Gym Leader with big glasses on his nose. He was wearing his standard suit and had his backpack between his legs.

"Really good Clemont, beds are really comfortable here" the raven-haired boy responded with a smile. "Anyway, where are the girls? We planned on meeting here soon. I remember that they were very excited about coming back to Lumiose…"

"Just relax Ash, they still have a few more minutes, let`s just wait for them here" Clemont said, being sure that they won`t wait so long.

He was wrong. They were waiting for about four hours and no one was coming from the hotel. All three of males fell asleep on a bench, so they didn`t realize when finally the main doors have opened and two girls ran out from the inside. Bonnie, younger sister of Clemont made her way to the boys first. She looked at them and made an evil grin. She reached for small orange mouse which was sitting in her bag and ordered it to use small Thunder Shock on Ash and Clemont. The older girl, Serena, wasn`t so happy about waking up boys in that way, but before she could react, Dedenne used his attack and after a second you could hear three screams full of pain, which caused a few Fletchlings sitting on the nearest tree to fly away.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!" the Lumiose Gym Leader shouted.

"Yeah, I don`t understand it too. Besides, you two are late for about... FOUR HOURS?! If you made it in time, we could be now on the road and tomorrow we would be in Lumiose" the raven-haired trainer said. His Pikachu wasn`t too happy either, sparks were jumping through his cheeks. He was dreaming about swimming in the pool full of ketchup, and these two female monsters took this paradise away from him.

Girls excused for this (which didn`t convince the males to forgive them so quickly) and they started walking to the biggest city in Kalos. When the night came they decided to stay on the nearest meadow and put a camp there. Three of the humans fell asleep almost immediately. Only Serena, who was sitting in her sleeping bag wasn`t sleeping yet. She was thinking about a certain someone, who was laying next to her. She was in love with the raven-haired trainer for a long time now, but she hasn`t got much courage to confess her feelings to him. Only Bonnie knew about a secret of the young Pokemon Performer, the boys were too dense to notice some obvious hints from the honey-haired girl. Serena looked at her crush once more before going to sleep and she soon started dreaming about kissing a boy of her dreams. A small blush remained on her face till the morning.

* * *

They were woken up at 7AM by the brightly shining sun. When they packed up everything, the group continued to head to the big city. They were talking about everything and nothing, but soon a subject changed to the future plans. The blonde siblings were planning to return to their home in Lumiose after a couple of days, Serena said that she didn`t make her mind up yet and only Ash didn`t say anything.

"Hey Ash, what about you?" asked Bonnie, curious of why her friend was the only one being silent.

"Umm, actually, I don`t know. I think I should go back to Pallet to see my mom and friends. But after that, I really don`t know" he responded with a grin.

Serena lost her smile after hearing this. She didn`t want to split up with the group, especially with the raven-haired trainer. But she didn`t say anything about this.

They reached Lumiose City in the afternoon. Much to disappointment of the female`s part of the group, the male side didn`t agree to go shopping this evening, and when girls started to grumble, Ash reminded them about yesterday`s "little" electric incident. The girls had no choice and remained silent through all the way to a Pokemon Center. When they entered the building with a red roof, they saw a mass of people staying in the hallway. It was a surprise to the group, because often Pokemon Centers were nearly empty. Everything became clear when Clemont paid their attention to the poster on the wall.

"You are kidding me, right? THERE IS GOING TO BE A CONTEST HERE, IN KALOS? I MUST SEE IT!" Bonnie screamed in joy, then she turned to her friends. "You know, I was a fan of contests for a long time, but. Unfortunately, Kalos hasn`t got them, until now!"

"Bonnie, hold on, it says that this contest starts in one hour. I`m too tired to go there, what about you, Ash and Serena?" Clemont asked his female friend.

"I`m tired too. Sorry Bonnie, it looks like I`m going to go straight to bed" the honey-haired girl informed sadly.

Bonnie`s mood drastically changed. She looked like she was going to cry. Clemont and Serena felt sorry for her, but all of them forgot about one person who was standing beside them, still looking at the poster. Ash turned back to the group with a big smile on his face.

"Don`t worry Bonnie, I`m not tired at all, and I really want to see this contest too, so you can go with me if you want – Ash winked at the girl. For another five minutes Bonnie was hugging Ash in joy and she wouldn`t let him go if Clemont didn`t inform her, that they must go now if they want to see the contest. When the girl ran out of the center, Ash only followed her, laughing at her enthusiasm.

* * *

The hall where the contest had place was near the Pokemon Center, so they had much time to buy tickets and various snacks. After that they found their seats and decided to wait for the start while sitting in them.

"Hey Ash, are you really that interested in contests? I thought that the Kalos League Champion wouldn`t be interested in thing like this" Bonnie asked, not taking her eyes from a colorful brochure.

"Well, in the past I had travelled with two coordinators, and, believe me or not, I took part in Sinnoh`s Wallace Cup and in Terracotta Contest, in which I made it to the finals" the raven-haired trainer said with a smile. He put his hand into his pocket and showed a half of a ribbon to his young friend.

"You won? That`s great! But… Why it is only a half of a ribbon?" Bonnie asked, very surprised while she was looking at small object.

"It`s very simple" Ash smiled once more. "In finals I met my friend, we tied up and because the organizers weren`t prepared for a draw, we splitted that ribbon. Oh, look, it`s starting!"

Both of them watched as a man dressed in red suit appeared on a scene. He slowly raised a microphone up to his mouth and started speaking.

"Hello Kalos region, I`m Mr. Contesta and I`m glad to welcome all of you on the first contest in history of Kalos region!" as he spoke this sentence, the crowd went crazy. When everyone calmed down, he continued.

"Today you will see coordinators from other regions. Every one of them has big achievements in Grand Festivals, so get ready for a great show!" Mr. Contesta bowed and left the scene. Crowd went crazy one more time, everyone wanted the contest to start. Ash looked up at Bonnie, who was still reading a brochure.

"Hey, is there a list of Coordinators who are going to perform today?" Ash asked curiously. Bonnie nodded and handed him the brochure. He looked at the list and his eyes grew wide. His gaze stayed at one name.

"I.. I can`t believe it…" he said, still holding the piece of paper.


	2. Chapter 2

Ash looked at the brochure once more: did he misunderstood it? No, it was clearly written down there.

 _Coordinators representing Hoenn region:_

 _\- Robert – Winner of Hoenn Grand Festival_

 _\- Drew – Runner-up of Hoenn Grand Festival, Runner-up of Johto Grand Festival_

 _ **\- May – Winner of Johto Grand Festival**_

There were also coordinators from other regions, but it wasn`t important for Ash. He was incredibly happy: May beat Drew in the final of Grand Festival! He was so proud and couldn`t wait to see her performance. Through shows of coordinators from Kanto and Johto he was just sitting on his chair and he wasn`t paying much attention. Only Solidad`s performance was quite interesting to him, the show that her Butterfree and Lapras done was unbelievable. Butterfree formed a shape out of Sleep Powder, Lapras froze it with its Ice Beam and at the end Butterfly Pokemon sprinkled Poison Powder around it. Ash looked at his left side to see that Bonnie was already on cloud nine. There were a few more coordinators before Mr. Contesta announced:

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to a double Runner-up in Grand Festivals, please welcome... DREW!"

At those words the green-haired coordinator arrived on the scene with a slight grin on his face. Female part of the crowd started to squeal when he winked to them all. After warm welcome he released his Roserade and made some kind of combination of Petal Dance, Stun Spore and Magical Leaf. It all made quite a thick, pink fog, which was soon diffused by Solar Beam. It didn`t impress Ash very much, besides he was waiting for a person who was going to perform after Drew. The green-haired boy bowed to the audience and left, accompanied with a huge applause.

"And he made it twice to the finals? Pleeease, he made probably the easiest trick in the world. Every rookie knows how to make a fog from various Powders" Bonnie huffed and crossed her arms on her chest. Ash couldn`t force himself to not laugh at her comment.

"And last, but not least, the winner of Johto Grand Festival, The Princess of Hoenn! Please welcome… MAY!" Mr. Contesta announced.

Now it was a turn for male part of the crowd to scream in happiness. Applause was much bigger than that given to Drew. Ash locked his eyes on a stage, and when May entered it, his eyes widened again.

She was wearing a long blue dress that matched her eyes color. Her brown, long hair was falling on her arms, as always. But not only this caught trainer`s attention. She matured a lot between those few years. Her figure could make all of the women jealous. Also, he noticed something that he never expected to say about her: she was beautiful. Ash couldn`t say a word, unlike Bonnie, who jumped of her chair and started to scream very, very loud.

The brunette smiled at the crowd and released two Pokemon: Cyndaquill and Glaceon. As Cyndaquill looked at the audience, there could be heard "aww" sounds.

"Ok, Cyndaquill, let`s heat the atmosphere up! Use Eruption!" May

Cyndaquill concentrated his energy and released a huge explosion of magma from his back, but it wasn`t normal Eruption; this one looked more like fireworks.

"Glaceon, use Blizzard to cool Cyndaquill`s Eruption!" the coordinator shouted at her Eevelution.

Glaceon released a Blizzard from her mouth, both moves soon connected with each other and they made small rocks, which fell onto the ground. At this moment you couldn`t see anything special about it.

"Cyndaquill, use multiple Lava Plume on the floor!" May shouted.

The small Pokemon nodded and released some lava from his mouth. It was soon visible that rocks weren`t laying on the ground for no reason. They made some kind of borders for lava. The more Cyndaquill`s Lava Plumes landed on earth, the more it looked like some kind of shape.

"And our last move! Glaceon, use Icy Wind on lava!" May shouted for the last time.

Fresh Snow Pokemon released cold wind from her mouth, it soon started to react with magma, and May`s creation was now visible: rocks and lava made a huge heart, When lava reacted with Icy Wind, it started to thicken, raising red heart above the rock boulders and falling down. This was lasting for one second and was repeated twenty times (which symbolized heartbeat) before lava cooled down. A huge, stone heart remained on the floor.

The crowd yelled louder than ever in this contest, applause could have been heard on the other side of the city. May bowed a few times before she left the scene. Now it was a time for the judges to choose a winner.

But Ash still was looking at the scene. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that it was over. He was truly impressed and agreed with himself that it was the best performance that he ever saw in his life. He turned to his right to see that Bonnie was crying. But these were tears of joy. It looked pretty much like she loved it too.

"The judges have decided!" Mr. Contesta arrived on the scene again, now with an envelope in his hand. "So, let`s see who impressed our judges the most!" he opened the letter. "The winner of the first Lumiose City Contest is …May from Petalburg City!"

If last screams of the crowd could be heard on the other side of town, then THIS applause could be heard in Unova. May bowed to the crowd and raised her hand, in which she was holding some kind of ribbon: this one was heart-shaped and had a green tape falling down the main, gold part of the ribbon. As all of the coordinators went to the changing rooms, everyone from the crowd started heading to the exit. Only Ash and Bonnie were sitting there for a few more minutes and talked about how great was the last performance. Then, they left to the main corridor which headed to the exit.

* * *

May changed her clothes quickly and left the changing room. She was wearing her old red jacket, red bandanna and dark blue pants, which was her favorite clothing. Happy and satisfied girl was heading to the exit, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"That was a great performance, May" she heard a voice of the green-haired coordinator "You really had improved a lot."

"Thanks, Drew, you weren`t that bad today too" she turned to him with a fake smile. She really didn`t want to talk to him right now, her mind was somewhere else.

"I was wondering, if you would want to go with me on a…" the boy from LaRousse City was going to finish when a loud scream of happiness interrupted him. May turned back and saw a little blonde-haired girl running to her. Bonnie was as happy as never, she could see her idol right in front of her!

"Aaaaah! I can`t believe that it`s really you, mistress May!" The happy child looked like she was going to explode "I`m your biggest fan, I have watched all of your battles in Johto. Two years ago you showed this green-haired dumb who`s the boss… ow." It was too late when she realized that Drew was standing behind May.

Drew tried to act like nothing really happened and smiled to the girl, but inside him a desire to mangle this kid to death was raising.

"Am I really that bad, little one?" he asked, sure that he will scare a girl a little with his posture.

But he was wrong. Very, very wrong.

"Umm, of course? You act very snobbish and pitifully, your twaddle wouldn`t impress any girl in the world, and your habit of flinging your hair... Ugh! It`s really annoying!"

While Drew tried to control himself to not punch Bonnie, May was laughing histerically. She stopped when she heard a voice coming from the other part of the corridor.

"BONNIE! WAIT FOR ME! WHAT AM I GOING TO SAY TO CLEMONT IF YOU GET LOST?!" A familiar voice was close to them now. Drew recognized it immediately – even after a little change of the voice he could tell that it was Ash Ketchum running to them. Now, when his plan to ask May for a date was ruined by this little brat he had nothing to do in here. Despite his behavior, it wasn`t that he disliked Ash, he just saw that May was very close to him and he saw him as some kind of "love rival" when they travelled together through Hoenn. So, when May`s attention was focused on the voice from the corridor, Drew quickly went to the exit.

* * *

While Ash was running after Bonnie he couldn`t believe that the little blonde was THAT fast. He promised himself to buy a dog-lead for her so she won`t get away from him next time.

He ran through the corner of the wall and automatically stopped when he saw a familiar kid with an older girl. When he looked up in brunette`s eyes he saw that after a few seconds tears started to stream down her beautiful face.

"Umm… hi May, long time no see, huh?" he said shyly, rubbing his head in the meantime.


	3. Chapter 3

The last thing that Ash saw before a certain brunette threw herself at him was a surprised look on Bonnie`s face. May gave him a tight hug and started to cry. Ash hugged her back and stroked her head slightly. They were standing like that for about two minutes, no one said a word, even Bonnie, who was standing next to her friend.

May eventually broke the hug and looked at her raven-haired friend with bloodshot, but happy eyes. He sure has changed a lot. His body was more muscular, and his face became very handsome. The only thing that was still exactly the same were his auburn eyes.

They were silent for some time, until May decided to break this silence.

"You can`t imagine how much I missed you, Ash" the brunette said. "We haven`t got any contact since Wallace Cup" she added with a disappointed voice.

"Yeah, that`s true. I`m sorry, I should at least call you from time to time" Ash responded, slightly embarrassed.

"You know, I even came back to Sinnoh to meet with you, Brock and Dawn. I arrived an hour after you guys left to your homeland. That was a bad luck!" May laughed and looked again at the trainer. It was a sweet scene to watch, unfortunately Bonnie had enough and she shouted out loudly.

"Ash, you knew… you knew mistress May for years and I didn`t know anything?" Bonnie screamed. She couldn`t believe it: one of her best friends had known her idol for a long time and he never talked about it. She only got a laugh from both boy and girl.

"All right May, it was great to see you again, but I think we should head back to the Pokemon Center, it`s 1PM already" Ash said sadly. He didn`t want to leave now, but he promised Clemont to take care of his sister. The Lumiose City`s Gym Leader wouldn`t be happy if he found out that Bonnie went to sleep too late.

"Hey, you don`t have to go all the way to the PokeCenter, my hotel is about one hundred meters from here, you can sleep in my room if you want" May said with a smile. After reunion with her best friend she wanted to spent more time with him – It`s quite big, so we will fit into it easily.

"Umm... I don`t know, what do you think, Bonnie?" Ash looked at small girl. He already knew her answer when he looked at her big smile and shining eyes.

"YES, YES, YES, YES, YES! ABSOLUTELY YES, COME ON ASH, PLEAAASE" she wrapped her arms around a trainer and begged him with her puppy eyes. He wanted to spend some time with May too, so he agreed to sleep in her room. He would explain it to Clemont later.

* * *

After they exited the hall they started to head into May`s hotel`s direction. When they entered the room Ash could see that it was as big as May described: there were three beds, big bathroom and a kitchen. Bonnie quickly went to sleep, so Ash and May walked to the balcony to not wake her up. They leaned to the handrail and watched stars on the night sky. They were silent for most of the time, but then it was Ash`s turn to start a talk.

"So, what were you doing for these three years? I know about your great achievement now. By the way, congratulations! You fulfilled your dreams and beat your main rival in finals!" Ash said with a smile. You could hear that he was very proud of her.

"Well, thank you, remember that you have contributed to this too" she winked at him and continued talking. "Well, I started to collect ribbons in Sinnoh, but after entering a few contests I lost my fighting spirit. I decided to stop performing, because I didn`t see anything great in competing anymore. That contest, here, in Lumiose, was my first contest attempt for three years" she spoke with no emotions. "I guess I made this decision because there weren`t any good rivals for me, after Drew went to Kanto to compete again in the local Grand Festival, and there wasn`t anyone to cheer for me" she sighed quietly and looked up to her friend. "So, now`s your turn to talk" she said with a smile.

"After Sinnoh I went to Unova and competed in local league, which I lost in 1/8 of finals so, yeah..." you could feel a bit of embarrassment in his voice. "But then I decided to go to Kalos, and believe me or not, I`m this year champion of Kalos Conference" he added with a proud smile.

"Ash, that`s awesome! Looks like both of us fulfilled our dreams. So, what are you planning to do now? Where will you go after Kalos?" she asked with curiosity.

"Well, that`s my main problem. As I know there aren`t any regions left to compete in, so maybe I`ll just come back to home and compete again in one of the regions I know" he said and looked again at the stars.

Instantly after hearing this an idea popped in coordinator`s head, but she decided to ask him later about it. Instead of that she turned to him with a mischievous grin.

"Ash?"

"Huh?"

"How is your life?"

"Umm, fine, but I think that I told you about this a couple of minutes ago, May…"

"No no no, I mean your personal life!" she quickly corrected herself. "I can surely tell that you aren`t as dense as you used to be in Hoenn and you understand what I`m talking about" she said and winked to him mysteriously.

"Well, I`m not in any relationship, if you had this on your mind. Of course, along my journeys I saw that some girls tried to flirt with me, but I wasn`t really interested in love things, because I wanted to focus on the league" he said. "But, to be honest, there were some nice girls that I met. And what about your "life"? Did you and Drew become a couple after all?" Now it was his turn to make an evil grin.

"WHAT?! NO, why would we be a couple?!" May jumped at his question.

"Well, when I was running to catch Bonnie, I saw Drew leaving the hall. Besides, it was obvious that you liked him very much, you blushed every time you saw him" Ash laughed "And after that, when you left to Johto, I thought that you were travelling together. I have known you for a long time so I`m sure that you couldn`t stay alone for a long time."

"Well, I didn`t travel alone, I teamed up with a coordinator named Carlissa, and I never considered to travel with Drew. I admire, he attracted me at the beginning, but soon I realized that he wasn`t that great as he tried to show. And today, I think he tried to ask me for a date" she made an uneasy expression. "But thanks to this little heroine his plan didn`t work out" a smile came back on her face as she turned to the room, where young blonde was sleeping.

"So, I guess that both of us changed in some ways" Ash said and made a yawn.

"Maybe, but some things will never change" said a coordinator. She pulled a half of a ribbon out of her pocket. Ash did the same and for the first time since the Wallace Cup the Terracotta ribbon was united.

* * *

May was in some kind of stronghold. A coordinator didn`t know what she was doing here, but she felt that something wasn`t right about this place. She walked through the nearest corridor and opened one of the doors on the wall. She gasped as the scenery around her changed and now she was on the top of the volcano. On the other side of the crater was a huge shadow and next to him stood a man. May quickly recognized this person – it was Ash. He looked like he was hurt heavily and was barely standing on his feet. After a while the shadow punched the trainer right in his stomach. Ash Ketchum felt down to lava. May started to cry and the only word that she yelled was…

* * *

"ASH!"

"May, what happened?!"

May opened her eyes. She was in her hotel room again. Above her was a pair of auburn eyes looking at her with a worry. She realized that it was just a dream. Horrible dream.

"Umm… I had a nightmare, nothing special" she said, slightly embarrassed.

"I often have nightmares. But there`s one thing that helps me to quick forget about it" he said and left the room. May sat on her bed, wondering where could he go. After a minute he came back with a cup of hot chocolate.

"Here, this is for you" he smiled as he handed his friend a drink. May thanked him and slowly drank the content of a cup. Maybe she didn`t forget the weird dream, but she definitely calmed down. Ash was glad that it worked.

"May, we are going to eat a breakfast in the hotel`s restaurant, are you coming with us?" he asked.

"Of course! Just wait for me, I`ll quickly get ready" the girl responded.

She quickly changed her pajamas to her normal clothes. They walked down to the restaurant, where Bonnie was already waiting for them. They ordered some food (eggs and bacon for Ash, two sandwiches for May and a cereal for Bonnie). They ate in silence and after that Bonnie told them about a toy shop that was near the hotel. She ran inside while Ash and May were waiting outside on the pathway.

"Ash? I have a question" the coordinator asked.

"Ok, what is it?" the boy responded.

May was silent for about ten seconds, then she turned her head to Ash.

"I... I wondered, if I could travel with you again. You see, I really missed your company and…"

She stopped when Ash put his hands on her shoulders and spoke calmly.

"Of course May, you don`t have to explain. I would love to travel with you again" he smiled widely. "So, do you have any ideas about where we can go next?"

"Yeah, what about Hoenn? We haven`t been there for a while, and Max is on his adventure already, so we might find him there. Remember, you promised him a fight years ago" May said and winked to the trainer.

"That`s a very good idea May, if I remember correctly there`s going to be a ship that goes to Hoenn in two days, so I still can introduce you to my other friends here in Kalos. What do you say about it?"

"That sounds like a plan!" May responded happily. Then, she hugged boy tightly and whispered to him:

"I`m glad that we met again, Ash."

The girl giggled as Ash covered her face with her bandana. Both of them were too busy to see the honey-haired girl, who was standing behind a building near the shop and was watching them for some time now. There was a tear running down her cheek. After three minutes she turned away and ran to the Pokemon Center, crying silently.


	4. Chapter 4

Clemont woke up just in time to see Serena`s coming back to their room in Pokemon Center. She had whole face in tears, but she managed to calm down already. When blonde boy saw her in that state he jumped out of a bed and ran to her.

"Serena, what happened?!" he asked, worried about the girl.

"Nothing, I… I just saw an accident and, well, it was too horrible to me" she lied to her friend. The real reason of her mood was that she saw Ash hugging other girl. That was too much for an enamored Serena. She felt betrayed, angry and very, very jealous. Clemont believed her and went to the shop to buy something to eat. Serena at the same time went to the bathroom and she gasped when she looked at the mirror. She looked like something the cat dragged in. Her eyes were heavily bloodshoted, well, her face was all in red color. Serena washed her face and went to bed to take a nap. At this moment sleep was the best choice for her. Unfortunately, after thirty seconds someone knocked to the door.

* * *

"Well, this is here" Ash said as he pointed at some room with is finger. 'They should be here, I think."

"Soo, let`s check it out" the happy brunette said. When Ash told her about his friends, she was very excited to meet them. Ash knocked to the door, but no one answered him. He slowly grabbed a door handle and pulled it down. When he went inside, he saw sleeping Serena in one of the beds. Ash smiled and left the room quickly.

"Serena still sleeps in there, so I won`t wake her up. By the way, am I the only one who is hungry again?" Bonnie sweat dropped at hearing this, while May`s stomach suddenly growled.

"I think that you know the answer now" May said, giggling.

* * *

"Thanks God that he just left me here"

Serena was still lying on bed in the same position. Her head was full of thoughts. She cried again not as much as she did earlier, but her pillow was wet anyways.

"What does she have that I don`t have? Why he prefers her?"

She sobbed quietly.

"Wait, it was only a hug, why am I thinking about it like that?"

Another sob.

"But… he never hugged me, besides I saw he was very happy around her. Maybe she`s only a friend to him, but they are really close together."

Eventually she fell asleep out of grogginess.

* * *

"Umm, mistress May, are you sure that you can eat it all?" Bonnie said, astonished by the amount of food that the brunette brought with her to the table. She has ordered three bowls of ramen, two packs of French fries and two hamburgers.

"Yes, I`m sure Bonnie, when it goes to food I`m as gluttonous as Ash" she smiled to a little girl. "And by the way, please call me May."

Bonnie nodded. After a while Ash came with his order: four cheeseburgers, two packs of French fries and a chocolate shake. He sat down with the girls; Bonnie sweatdropped at the view on his side of table.

"Are you sure that you aren`t siblings? For me, it looks like you two are the same!"

Ash only laughed at her comment.

"Well, I`m sure about that. I don`t know why people act like we are aliens, or something" he said while he was eating his third burger. Bonnie decided to not say anything from now.

When they left the restaurant, Ash noticed a familiar person walking up the stairs.

"Hey, Clemont, turn around!" he shouted at his blonde-haired friend.

Clemont looked back and smiled as he saw them. But immediately his smile changed into serious look as he walked to them.

"Can you tell me where have you been all the night? I was really worried!"

"Sorry Clemont, but the contest has ended very late, and May offered that we can sleep in her room, By the way, Clemont, this is May. She is my friend from Hoenn" Ash said. "May, this is Clemont. He`s a gym leader here, in Lumiose City."

"Hi, I know you! My sister has two big posters of you in her room. You`re a coordinator, right? Besides, thank you for taking care of Bonnie and Ash" Clemont held out his hand, which May shook.

"Yes, I`m a coordinator, and no problem, I`ve been traveling with Ash for a long time. I know how to take care of him" she winked at the raven-haired trainer, who just rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, where did you go Clemont? I thought that you will stay in our room until we come back" the auburn-eyed boy asked. Clemont put his hand in a plastic bag, which he was holding for all the time and he brought out a box of chocolates.

"I went to the shop. When I woke up Serena came into our room and said that she saw a horrible accident. She was traumatized, so I thought that it could help a bit."

"Hey, that`s so sweet!" May squealed. Clemont just rubbed back of his head in embarrassment.

"Well, I think we should go to her, she`s been staying there alone for a long time."

Everyone nodded and they went upstairs.

* * *

Serena was still sleeping when the doors opened. She jumped in shock when she heard a creak and soon in the room were four other people.

"Hey Serena, how do you feel right now?" Ash asked. "We heard about an accident. Just don`t think about it, ok?"

"Ok Ash, I will try" she answered. After that Clemont approached her and gave her a box.

"Here, this is for you, I hope you will like it" he said while rubbing his head again. Serena just sat there in silence.

"But… why have you bought this for me, Clemont?" she asked with disbelief; no one before gave her something to cheer her up when she had a bad time.

"You looked like this accident really touched you. Besides, chocolate calms down and I heard that it improves mood too" he smiled at her.

"Ok, now, I have someone to introduce to you. Serena" Ash spoke and the brunette stepped forward to Serena. There was only two words running through mind of honey-haired girl. " _Oh heck_ ".

"Hi, I`m May, nice to meet you" May held out her hand. Serena shook it with uneasy expression.

"Hey, is something wrong?" May frowned. Serena quickly smiled and shrugged.

"No, but I have a feeling that I saw you before" Serena laughed forcefully.

"Well, May is a coordinator, she is known as 'Princess of Hoenn', so you may saw her in TV or something" said Ash. After that he received an embarrassed look from the brunette.

"You know that I don`t feel comfortable when people call me like that" May said and she turned to Serena. "By the way, there`s a festival in Lumiose today, and I think that we should all go there, what do you think Serena?" she asked with a smile.

"I think that`s a great idea, just give me five minutes to get ready" Serena said. She quickly ran to Clemont and hugged him. "And thank you for the chocolates, that was very sweet!"

Clemont blushed slightly but luckily no one noticed this. The group exited the room and Serena went to the bathroom.

"Oh heck" she said under her breath.

* * *

May sat on the bench next to Ash. The raven-haired boy was too busy cuddling Pikachu (the Pokemon was angry at his trainer for leaving him alone for the night) and talking to Clemont and Bonnie. May had nothing against it, maybe she wanted to spend time only with Ash, but she knew that in two days she will have him only for her for some time. Now she wanted to think about something else. She spotted that Serena was very uneasy with her, like if May had done something to the honey-haired girl. The brunette was very good at recognizing if someone lied or not, and Serena definitely was hiding something from everyone. A coordinator decided to talk to her about that later.

"Hey May, do you remember what was the name of this boy who was a maniac of shorts back there in Hoenn?"

"I think it was Nikolai" she responded and raised eyebrow.

"Ok, thanks, so Nikolai came in a Zangoose outfit and said that…" it looked like Ash was talking with Clemont about his adventures in Hoenn. As May started to listen to the raven-haired boy, she became amazed of how he remembered nearly all details. Well, maybe beyond names. May also noticed that Ash was talking with some kind of excitement in his voice. She had never heard him to relate his adventures in other regions with that passion. She smiled to herself as she thought about a good time that they had back there.

"Ok, I`m ready now!" Serena shouted as she ran to the group.

"Aww, come on! You`re late for almost half an hour! I think I will never figure out girls..." Ash said with annoyed voice.

"I`m sorry, but after sleeping for a couple of hours my hair was in terrible state! I couldn`t go out like this!" Serena explained with an angry face. She calmed instantly when she saw that Ash was laughing.

"Ok, but you exaggerate a bit. Your hair looks great for me in every state. Now come on, let`s go have some fun!" he turned around. Only May noticed that Serena was blushing like crazy and that she hid her face under her hat.

" _Wow, Ash learned how to compliment a girl_ " thought the brunette. " _Well, after what I saw now I have some suspicions, but I must wait and observe more. Now let`s concentrate at the festival_." May smiled to herself as they went to a city center.


	5. Chapter 5

"Aww! That`s so cute! Just look at it, guys!" a loud scream could be heard from a fair. Serena was standing next to a stand, where she was watching all of the clothes that were there. Ash, May, Clemont and Bonnie were sitting in the ice cream parlor nearby. All of them watched in disbelief as the honey-haired girl admired some kind of sweatshirts.

"I find it very familiar to someone…" Ash whispered with a grin. May heard it and she rubbed her head in embarrassment.

"Hey, I wasn`t that bad, right?" she asked as she watched Serena trying on some kind of sunglasses.

"Well, maybe I exaggerated a bit…" the raven-haired trainer responded as his Kalos friend returned with four bags full of clothes in her hands.

"OK! I`m ready, we can move on now!" Serena said as happy as never. "Umm… what are you looking at? Do I have something on my face?"

"Are you sure that you will carry ALL of this along?" Ash asked, very confused.

"Well, I think that I could have bought a little too much" Serena responded as she looked at her bags. "Well, I must go back to the PokeCenter to leave this in our room, will someone go with me?" she asked, her eyes locked on Ash. A trainer felt her look and he was going to stand up, but his blonde friends did it before him.

"I can go if you want, you will need help with… these…" Clemont pointed at the bags.

"And I must go to the toilet… WC`s there are so unhygienic" Bonnie winced.

This wasn`t what Serena expected, but she nodded to them. Soon, they left Ash and May alone.

Through all of their way back only one person wasn`t smiling.

* * *

"So, what are we going to do? They won`t be here within an hour or two " Ash asked.

"Umm… well, I saw some cool stuff when we were walking, maybe Ferris Wheel?" May suggested with a smile.

"Sure, it will be fun!" Ash nodded. He hasn`t been on a funfair for a long time as well as May. They bought two tickets and looked at their target. It was huge, almost two hundred meters height. May gulped.

"Come on, It won`t be scary, I`m with you" the raven-haired boy as he put his hand on her shoulder. This definitely calmed her down and they jumped to a cabin. When they sat down, May realized that they weren`t alone in here.

"Look Oscar, I think that we have a company" a girl with blonde, curled hair said.

"Indeed my dear, but do you also have this strange feeling that we had seen them before?" a man with a green, messy hair asked.

"Oh no…" Ash muttered as he remembered the two which were sitting next to them.

"Hi, Oscar and Andi" May said with a fake smile. She couldn`t believe that of all people in the world they had to meet THEM.

* * *

"Serena, are you ok? You haven`t spoke anything since we left Ash and May at the fair" Clemont asked. Bonnie just facepalmed as she saw how dense was her brother. But she didn`t say anything.

"I have a headache, that`s all" Serena said, not looking back. She wasn`t lying. All of those thoughts about Ash and May affected her brain too much. What were they doing now? The jealousness had overshadowed her feelings. Now all of May`s actions towards Ash seemed just like she was hitting on him. Serena was nervous and it was visible. Bonnie couldn`t see her friend in that state for any longer. She decided that she must have a conversation with her.

* * *

"Oh, I remember you now! You are the couple that we had met in Hoenn back there" Andi said with a big smile "It`s good to see that you are still together."

"Yes, true lovers always stay together" added Oscar.

The teenagers were sitting there with a red faces. The enjoyable moment transformed into the worst nightmare.

"WE AREN`T A COUPLE!" they screamed in the same moment. It caused their red faces to redden even more.

"Four years have gone and they still can`t admit it" Oscar shrugged. "Let`s change a topic. I could swear that I`ve seen you in the Kalos Conference. Are you Ash Ketchum?"

"Yup, that`s me!" Ash said, his skin was already in its normal color.

"So I must congratulate you for your achievement. Your Pikachu was incredible in the final battle!" Oscar said.

"Looks like you became famous, Ash" May teased her friend with a wink.

"You`re probably right, May…" the raven-haired boy responded, rubbing his head.

"May? Isn`t that the name of the Johto Grand Festival winner?" Andi asked with a shocked expression.

May was about to respond, but Ash was first to do it.

"Yeah, that`s her! She destroyed her opponent in the final, right May?" the trainer asked, looking at his friend.

May was quite surprised at his outburst, but she quickly smiled and nodded.

"Right, he didn`t stand a chance!" she said loudly with a confident smile.

"To be honest, when we battled you back there in the forest I could sense that both of you had a big skill. It was your lack of cooperation that prejudged our win" Oscar said. "Listen to me, together you can make something incredible, remember that when the right time will come."

Their ride was going to the end. For both Ash and May it went better than they expected. When the doors opened, two of them jumped out of cabin. May ran to the Hot-Dog stand, while Ash was unexpectedly stopped by Oscar.

"Listen to me, Ash" he spoke calmly. "You have a great girl with you, I could say that every man would be happy to have her by his side. So I have an advice for you: don`t let her get away. We aren`t saying those things about you two to tease you, it`s because you two are made for each other. The way you act, the way you speak to each other" he let go Ash`s shoulders. "That`s all what I have to say. Have fun out there, bye!" he winked to the raven-haired boy and left with his fiancée.

Ash just stood there with a blank look on his face. He was setting everything in his head. Was Oscar right? Were they that close to each other? Ash tried to answer himself to those questions. Unexpectedly, he felt a hand on his back. When he turned back, he saw May with two Hot-Dogs in her hands.

"Everything`s okay? You were standing here for about five minutes. Besides, here, this is for you" she handed him one of Hot-Dogs. "I thought that after the ride you could be hungry" she smiled.

"Thank you, actually, I can eat something" he smiled back and dug his teeth in a roll. He decided to not think about Oscar`s words now. It was time to enjoy the meeting with his best friend.

* * *

The trio was sitting in the room. Clemont was searching for something in his backpack, Serena was laying down on her bed and Bonnie was observing both of them. Eventually she decided to speak.

"Clemont, I`m hungry."

"So why can`t you go buy something?" asked a boy.

"My legs are tired! I can barely stand up" she grumbled.

"Ehh… Ok, I`ll go buy you something. What do you want?" Clemont asked.

"A cheeseburger! And a pack of French fries!" Bonnie said loud.

"Ok, I`ll be right back – a boy left the room. "Now is the time" Bonnie thought. She got up from her bed and walked over to Serena. Honey-haired girl was very surprised.

"Bonnie, I thought you said that your legs…"

"It was only an excuse. I wanted to talk with you about Ash" Bonnie said with a smile. Serena tried to stay calm.

"Ok, what`s about him?"

"Please, it`s clearly visible that you fell in love with him. And don`t try to deny it. You blush every time when he says something to you, you look at him very often and more" Bonnie said with a serious tone. Serena just sighed.

"I only hope that he didn`t spot it… " she said quietly.

"Pleease, Ash is too focused on his Pokemon. Only I know about your crush, and I can`t stand seeing you suffer from it. Don`t you think that maybe you should tell him how you feel?" the little blonde asked.

"Are you serious?! I won`t do that! At least not now!" Serena screamed.

"Well, it`s your choice. So, why are you so upset?" Bonnie asked with a curious face.

"It`s because of that friend of Ash. Every her action towards him seems like she is hitting on him, and I can`t stand it!" Serena cried. "And I`m too stupid to fight for him!"

"Okay, I think I know what to do…" Bonnie said with a smile. When she whispered her plan to honey-haired girl, she smiled too.

"Now, it`s only in your hands, Serena" Bonnie said in the same moment as Clemont came back to the room.


	6. Chapter 6

It was not long after the Ferris Wheel`s ride when Ash received a message from Clemont.

" _Hi! I know that we declared to come back to the fair, but Bonnie is too tired for it. Also, Serena has a headache, so I will stay with them here. We all hope that you have a great time out there. See ya "_

"May? It looks like we are alone this evening" Ash said and showed a phone to his friend.

"It`s no problem, there`s a cinema about two hundred meters away, so we can watch a movie" she pointed in the direction where the building was.

"Ok, I`ll buy tickets for us, just wait in the corridor" Ash suggested.

"But wait! We haven`t decided which movie would be the best yet!" May protested.

"Just leave it to me, I guarantee you`ll like it" Ash winked to the brunette and went to the cash desk.

 ** _After two hours…_**

"ASH KETCHUM! I HATE YOU" a loud girlish scream could be heard. "FROM ALL OF THE FILMS THAT WERE THERE, YOU HAD TO CHOOSE A HORROR!"

"Relax May, it wasn`t that scary. Furthermore, you didn`t mind steal my cap and cover your eyes with it. Can I have it back?" Ash asked.

"Here!" she threw it right in his face. "Thanks to you I won`t sleep this night."

"You can always command your Venusaur to use Sleep Powder" the raven-haired boy teased her with a wink. She responded with a grunt and crossed her arms on her chest.

"So, what were you talking about with Oscar?" a brunette decided to ask him. Maybe she was angry at him, but her curiousness won.

"We… were talking about Nidoran`s breeding" Ash blurted without thinking. Two seconds later he cursed in his mind for coming up with such an idiotic response.

"Yeah, I can see you`re not telling the truth" May said. She sighed and turned her face to him. "Come on, I won`t tell anyone."

"I think that I will keep it to myself, sorry" Ash said with a sad smile. It wasn`t necessary to tell her what Oscar said about them. A girl sighed again and continued to walk in complete silence.

* * *

"Bonnie, why aren`t you eating your food? Just fifteen minutes ago you were dying from hunger" Clemont said with a frown.

"Umm… I think that I wasn`t hungry at all, sorry" she rubbed her head. "You can eat it if you want.

"Someone must do it" he sighed and went to the table. He forced himself to swallow already cold cheeseburger and after that he went to the bathroom to take a shower.

Serena was silent for all of the time. Suddenly she stood up and went to Bonnie`s bed. She sat right after her and started to whisper.

"Bonnie, are you sure he wouldn`t mind if I go with him? You know, I don`t want to be a fifth wheel" she asked her little friend with a concerned look.

"Serena, you won`t stand a chance if you will talk like that! Do you think Ash would want a girl who doesn`t know what she wants?" the annoyed blonde said.

"Well I… think he wouldn`t" the honey-haired girl closed her eyes and agreed with her friend.

"So, stop thinking of it and JUST DO IT!" Bonnie screamed, unfortunately her brother heard it.

"Bonnie, what did you say?" the blonde-haired boy asked from behind of the door.

'Nothing, I have just seen a bug on the window!" Bonnie lied. She then sighed of relief and turned to Serena. Out of the blue the honey-haired girl moved on her own bed with a confused expression on her face.

* * *

May was quiet for a long time now. It was annoying for the certain raven-haired trainer but he couldn`t blame her, it was his fault that she was now angry at him. While they were walking back to the Pokemon Center, May accidentally tripped and she fell on the ground.

"May, are you ok?" Ash asked with a concerned voice.

"Yes, I`m alright" she said as she tried to stand up. Her attempt wasn`t successful. She groaned and sat on the ground, rubbing her knee.

"Yeah, I can see you`re all right." Ash rolled his eyes and decided to pick her up in bridal style.

"Wha… What are you doing?" the brunette asked. She was shocked by his behavior."

"May, we both know that you can`t walk now, so I will carry you to your room, it`s simple" he said and smiled to her.

"But my room is farther than the Pokemon Center! You don`t have to carry me for all the way there!" May tried to argue with him.

"You should know that you won`t convince me to let you walk by yourself" Ash laughed as he walked to May`s hotel. He was too focused on the road, so he didn`t notice that the brunette soon fell asleep, cuddled in his chest. When he entered her room, he decided to put her in her bed. Unfortunately, she was holding tightly to him. It looked like she wouldn`t let him go without waking her. Ash sighed and decided to wait till she finally let him go. Much time had passed until she released his shirt, so he could put her in bed, but while he was going to the door she started to mumble.

"Please… don`t leave me alone anymore… please…" she said unconsciously. After a while a single tear started to fall over her cheek. Ash felt bad. He knew that he was responsible for the possible nightmares of her, so he moved an armchair near the brunette`s bed and decided to stay with her at night. When he fell asleep, still sitting in a chair, May`s hand made a contact with his. She gripped it tightly. After that on her face appeared a big smile.

* * *

Serena was the first to wake up. She wiped her eyes and looked around the room. Bonnie and Clemont were still sleeping, but there was one person missing. The honey-haired girl looked at the clock. It was 7:59AM.

" _Where is he_?" the slightly frightened girl thought.

* * *

May was in the same stronghold in where she has been last night. She went into the same corridor and she recognized the door that showed her horrible vision. After a while she realized that there were some other doors. She entered a second room and saw a big forest. The light didn`t make its way through the trees, so it was really dark in there. She could hear some weird noises, which were close to her.

Suddenly hundreds of Gengars appeared. They started to laugh awfully, which made May scared. She started to run away from them, but soon she hit into something. She looked above and saw that overgrown Tentacruel had blocked her way. He caught her with his tentacle and raised it at the height of his eyes. May started to cry. She was alone here with her childhood nightmare.

Unexpectedly someone hit a Tentacruel with unbelievable power. Giant Pokemon let go May as he collapsed into the ground. A girl was falling for a couple of seconds before her savior caught her in his arms. She looked in his eyes, and although she couldn`t see his face, he seemed very familiar to her. She hugged him and started to cry.

"Please! Don`t leave me alone anymore! Please… " she said to the man, who just smiled and gently stroked her hair. May smiled. Now she felt safe.

* * *

It was 6PM when she woke up. Her vision was blurry, but she felt that she wasn`t alone in her room. She looked at her hand and spotted that she held someone. At her right side a raven-haired boy was sleeping in an armchair. A girl blushed slightly and pulled her hand away.

" _So… He was there all night long? All I can remember is that he carried me when we were heading to the hotel…_ "

May got out of her bed and went to the kitchen to make some breakfast for two of them. When she opened the fridge, Ash started to wake up.

"May, is everything ok?" he asked with a concern in his voice.

"Sure, why wouldn`t it be ok?" she asked with a smile.

"Well… let`s just say that in the night you looked like you had some nightmares" he said and sniffed. "Did I just smell pancakes?"

"Yeah, they will be ready in three minutes" May winked to her best friend. " _So, he was there for all night long because he saw that I had nightmares? Wow, he became even more caring about the others since our journey_." She smiled wider as she looked back at Ash, who was stretching in an armchair.

* * *

"Serena, stay calm, I`m sure that he`s all right" Clemont said. The blonde siblings tried to reassure the honey-haired girl, but with no success. Pikachu just sat on the floor and looked at the scene in the opposite of him. He knew that his trainer probably was with May, but he also noticed that Serena was acting strangely when it came to Ash.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS? HE MIGHT GOT INJURED OR SOMETHING! MAYBE HE GOT LOST IN SOME KIND OF FOREST OR…" Serena was screaming when the doors suddenly opened. The certain raven-haired trainer went into the room and looked at his friends with a frown.

"Umm… guys, what happened here?" he asked. Pikachu jumped onto his shoulder and explained everything. Ash just facepalmed.

"And all of these screams were made because I didn`t came back into the room? You know, I can take care of myself..."

"Try to explain this for Serena…" Clemont shrugged. Ash looked at the honey-haired girl, who was staring at him with an angry look.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW I WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU?!" she screamed again "COULDN`T YOU JUST PHONE US AND TELL WHERE THE HECK HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

"Hey, hey, just relax" Ash tried to calm the girl down, in the meanwhile he sat on the nearest bed "I understand why you`re angry, but I`m not supposed to stay in this room for all of the time, you know?"

"OH YEAH? WELL, I CAN EASILY SAY THAT YOU WERE ALL TIME LONG WITH YOUR BRUNETTE FRIEND" Serena shouted and put her hands on her hips.

"SO, WHAT`S WRONG WITH IT?" Ash couldn`t stand it anymore. He jumped out of bed and now looked at Serena "WE DIDN`T SEE EACH OTHER FOR FOUR STUPID YEARS! IT`S NORMAL THAT I WANT TO SPEND SOME TIME WITH HER! AND FOR YOUR INFORMATION, 'THE BRUNETTE' HAS A NAME!"

"OH, I`M VEEEERY SORRY ABOUT IT! I SEE THAT "MAY" ALREADY TOOK MY PLACE! I FEEL LIKE YOU WERE IGNORING ME WHEN SHE WAS WITH US! WHAT`S YOUR PROBLEM WITH ME?!"

"YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WITH A PROBLEM HERE. SINCE MAY HAS STARTED TO ACOMPANY US YOU WERE ACTING LIKE SHE HAD DONE SOMETHING TO YOU! I DON`T KNOW WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU, BUT I HAVE ENOUGH" and with those words he left the room, banging the door.

Clemont and Bonnie couldn`t believe what happened here. After a while they ran to Ash to calm him down and left Serena alone in the room. A honey-haired girl threw herself on a bed, where she started to cry hysterically.


	7. Chapter 7

Ash slowly walked out of the Pokemon Center with a big frown on his face. He has been able to calm down already, but he was still angry at a honey-haired girl. He couldn`t also understand why she said those words. A boy went to the park and sat on the bench. Suddenly, he heard some screams.

"Ash, where are you?!" it was a voice of a girl. After ten seconds he saw Clemont and Bonnie walking to him in a slow pace. They had an uneasiness on their faces, but it soon disappeared as a raven-haired trainer patted a bench to suggest them to sit down with him. There was a silence between them for a couple of minutes, as all of them were observing some wild Teddiursas which were playing in the grass.

"Ash, we`re really sorry for what Serena said, I don`t know what has gotten into her" said Clemont. Bonnie remained silent, because she knew the reason of Serena`s behavior. But it wouldn`t help if the boys realized the truth.

"It`s ok Clemont, it wasn`t your fault, come on!" Ash laughed. "I don`t know why did I raise my voice too."

"Well" Bonnie had to say something, so she came up with an idea. "You know Ash, when a girl matures, there are some moments of weakness for her. Maybe Serena is in this moment now?"

"I don`t know Bonnie, I`m only sure about one thing: that I must take a breath. I`m going to the forest, don`t try to search for me, I`ll come back when I decide that it`s time" Ash said and made his way to the trees nearby.

The siblings were staring at him until he disappeared between the leaves. Bonnie felt bad for her auburn-eyed friend, Serena`s words must have soaked into him. Well, she wouldn`t want to hear those things is she was him. Also she felt sorry for May, Serena`s weird behavior must have been noticed by a brunette.

"Bonnie, do you want an ice cream?" Clemont said, hoping that it could at least improve his sister`s mood.

"Of course! You always know what to do to cheer me up, Clemy!" she hugged him tightly.

* * *

Serena was crying in her pillow, when she heard a knocking. She stood up and opened the door to see a girl with a red bandanna on her head.

"Hi, can I come in?" May asked carefully as she noticed tears on Serena`s cheek.

The honey-haired girl was about to decline, when she remembered her previous outburst at Ash. She smiled weakly.

"Sure, come in" she moved away to let the brunette walk to the room.

* * *

Ash was sitting on a meadow. His loyal partner, Pikachu, was lying on his back and snoring. They were walking for about three hours, so it was understandable that electric mouse fell asleep.

"Well, I don`t know what to think about it" Ash whispered to himself. His mind was occupied with millions of thoughts. He wasn`t angry anymore, he was also able to forgive Serena. But he wanted to know. He wanted to know why she was that angry at him. Was it true that he was ignoring her? Maybe he really was focusing only at May?

The boy sighed. He was travelling for six years now, he conquered the strongest Pokemon in the world, he became a league champion, he even was able to save the mankind a couple of times. The only thing that he couldn`t do was to figure out girls. He giggled as he recalled some of memories. He travelled with so many females: Misty, May, Dawn, Iris, and now Serena. He should be an expert of girly things, but he wasn`t.

Ash slowly got up from the grass and picked up still sleeping Pikachu in his arms. He started heading back to the Pokemon Center. He had to talk to the honey-haired girl, no matter if he wanted to do it or not.

* * *

"So, what brings you here?" Serena asked, when the two of them sat on the coach.

"I wanted to talk with you about Ash" May said with a serious tone in her voice.

" _So, here we go_ " Serena thought as May started to talk again.

"Before I start the right topic, I wanted to say that at the last night Ash was with me" May started. "I had an accident and hurt my knee" she pointed at her leg, which was still covered with a bandage. "And Ash helped me to get to my hotel. I fell asleep quickly and today when I woke up I saw that Ash was sleeping in an armchair. When I asked him about it he just told me that I was mumbling in my dream and it looked like I was having a nightmare, so he stood in my room just in case if I would need him" she smiled as she took a break to breath. "So don`t be angry at him, he is probably the most caring person in the world if it`s going about his friends. By the way, you should know that by now" she smiled and winked at Serena.

"But, why have you told me all of this?" the honey-haired girl asked, shocked with what May had said.

"I saw yesterday that you were uneasy with my presence. Serena, I really want to be friends with you, I don`t know why you are like this, and I want to do now is to make a girly talk with you" May smiled. "So, why were you crying a while ago?"

"I had an argument with Ash. I screamed at him for not coming back at night. I was worried about him and it soon evolved into madness. I said a few words that made him angry, he banged the door and went somewhere. I don`t know if he would forgive me at all" she started to cry again. May just hugged her, trying to calm her down.

"Shhh… don`t cry, Ash isn`t the one to nurse a grudge for a long time. I`m sure that he have already forgiven you and soon it will all be alright between you and him" the brunette said to the honey-haired girl. After a few minutes Serena calmed down.

"Thank you May, and I`m sorry that I wasn`t nice to you before" Serena said. Now she truly regretted her words.

"It`s ok, if something like this happened to me, I would overreact too" May smiled and walked to the door – Besides, in the café nearby they have great milkshakes. Do you want to go there with me? We can talk about Ash`s most embarrassing moments, and believe me, he had a lot of them!

"Sure, just let me take care of my face, I don`t want to go outside like this" she pointed at her bloodshot eyes and both of them started to laugh.

* * *

Ash was going through the park again, now he had cleared his mind and headed to the Pokemon Center. Suddenly, Pikachu woke up and jumped of his trainer`s arms.

"What the… Pikachu, wait!" Ash shouted. He ran after his friend but he wasn`t able to catch him. They were running until Pikachu stopped running and jumped on some girl`s lap. Ash looked at the two people who were sitting at the table and sighed in relief.

"Ash, I guess you feel better now?" Clemont said, smiling at his raven-haired friend.

"Yes, I guess" Ash looked at Bonnie, who was sitting with Pikachu in her hands. "Now, Pikachu, explain to me why did you run that fast to this place?

"I think I know the reason" Bonnie reached for the bottle of ketchup which was on the table and gave it to the Pikachu, who squealed from joy.

Ash just facepalmed and sat with his friends. They had spent the rest of the afternoon talking about everything and nothing.

* * *

"… and after that he was lying on the ground burned and unconscious!" May related to Serena their battle in Petalburg Town. "You must have seen his face after that!" the brunette burst with a laugh.

"I can`t believe that a small Torchic was able to put Ash down! What a shame…" Serena joined May with a laugh. "Now I see that in Kalos he is more mature than he was in Hoenn."

"Yeah, he changed a lot" May confirmed. "But at the same time he didn`t. At least he isn`t that dense anymore."

"He isn`t? I thought that he had only a Pokemon battles in his head" Serena asked.

"No, he slowly started to realize that girl can be something more than a friend" May giggled. "So, what do you think about him?"

"I think he`s great friend and he cares for everyone beyond him" Serena said calmly.

"And only that? Well, what about his look? Is he handsome to you?" May asked with a goofy smile.

"Umm, yeah! I mean, just look at him, he has a muscular body, and everything..." Serena stopped, confused. "Anyways, why are you asking about this?"

"I`ve just wanted to know other girl`s opinion" May said. "You know, I didn`t seen him for a long time, and I wanted to know if I am the only one who notice all of these things" she giggled once more. "Ok, let`s change the topic. I`ve heard that you are a performer. Can you tell me what`s going on with these performances?" May asked.

Serena started to explain all of the most important things and rules. They didn`t notice that someone was observing them from behind of the building. A mysterious person heard everything they were talking about for twenty minutes. He gritted his teeth and walked away in complete silence.


	8. Chapter 8

A young man walked through the corridor in a secret base. He thought about his mission, which was to spy on the friends of the newest Kalos League champion. He had to collect some information, but unfortunately, he only heard some interesting news yesterday.

Syer was one of the best spies in Team Rocket. He was able to steal Reshiram`s feather, which wasn`t the easiest thing to do. Thanks to him Team Rocket caught many of the strongest Pokemon in the world. And he was only sixteen years old. So, this mission should be easy.

Unfortunately, it was`t. Those people didn`t say anything interesting today. Syer was slowly losing his patience and when two girls from Ketchum`s team were talking only about "how handsome Ash is" or "which style do you prefer in performances" he just walked away, gritting his teeth.

Now Syer was heading to his leader`s base. He didn`t know why Giovanni wanted this particular raven-haired boy, but he must have been very powerful. Well, he is league champion after all.

"Maste" Syer said when he opened the door to Team Rocket`s leader room.

"Syer, it`s good to see you" Giovanni said, not turning back from a window. "How is your mission?"

"Sir, I wanted to inform you that I wasn`t able to collect much important information" Syer said. "His female friends only talked about his appearance, and I think this isn`t what we need. The only thing I know is that he wants to travel to Hoenn with his brunette friend and their ship will swim out today at 3PM..."

"And this is what I wanted to hear" Giovanni turned to his loyal apprentice. "You`re free now, but I will need you in Hoenn in two days. Be on the way to Petalburg Town and try to catch our target."

"Yes, sir" the young spy nodded and walked away.

* * *

Ash let Pikachu finish a bottle of ketchup and a group of friends walked back to Poke Center. When Ash walked through the door, he made an uneasy expression and facepalmed.

"I almost forgot that I have a ship to Hoenn today!" he said as he ran to his bed to pack all of his things.

"So, you made up your mind, huh?" Clemont asked. Bonnie was looking at Ash with a sad expression.

"So… today we will part our ways?" the blonde girl asked. Tears soon appeared in her eyes. Ash noticed it and walked to her.

"Don`t cry… I know it`s hard to say goodbye, but we`ll meet very soon, I promise" Ash hugged his little friend, who calmed down.

"Ok, I`ll hold you to that" Bonnie said looking above her at the raven-haired boy.

" _Wow, he IS good when it goes to girls_ " Clemont thought. " _Even I couldn`t calm her down that easily, maybe this is the reason why Serena likes him so much…_ "

* * *

"… so, you only must present yourself, no Pokemon battles or anything" Serena ended her monologue.

"Well, I don`t think this is for me" May sweatdropped. "I think I`ll stay with the contests."

"Your choice" Serena winked. "Besides, it`s 1PM now, we should go to the others and maybe go on a dinner…?"

"1PM? I ALMOST FORGOT" May yelled and ran in her hotel`s direction, leaving Serena alone at the café.

"What`s got into her?" Serena frowned at May`s behavior. "Wait, maybe... she goes somewhere... with Ash?"

At this moment all of her previous thoughts started to come back into her mind again. Serena stopped seeing May as a friend, but as a rival. She started to squeeze her cup with coffee in fury.

"So, that`s why she was asking me about what I think of Ash, huh?" she whispered. "She only wanted to know if I am any danger for her..."

At this moment the cup in her hands was unbelievably deformed. She threw it away from her as she looked in the direction where May disappeared a few moments ago.

"He will be mine... And you will be very disappointed when it happens..."

Suddenly, she remembered that she must talk with the raven-haired boy. Well, this wasn`t the best moment, but she didn`t have a choice.

"Oh heck…" she whispered.

* * *

May was in her room. She started to pack all of her clothes and cosmetics. Interestingly, she wasn`t carrying too much of them. Suddenly. May remembered about something. She reached for two Pokeballs from her backpack and released two Pokemon: a fire type known as Cyndaquil and an ice type - Glaceon.

"Sorry about leaving you in them for so long" May rubbed her head" I had many things to do and I totally forgot, will you forgive me?"

Cyndaquil happily squealed and jumped on his trainer`s lap. Glaceon just looked at the brunette with a frown."

"Glace glace?" a Fresh Snow Pokemon asked, still looking at May.

"Umm, I met Ash here in Lumiose and we hanged out for some time…" May said shyly. Glaceon however smiled when one thought came into her mind. She started to fawn to her trainer`s leg, purring at the same time. May understood it too well and sweatdropped.

"Glaceon, I know what you have in your mind, but no, we weren`t on a date or anything. Ash is just a friend, please deal with it…" the brunette said looking down at her Pokemon. Glaceon looked in her eyes and after a moment was rolling on the floor and laughing.

"What`s so funny?!" May was now slightly irritated by her Pokemon`s behavior.

"Glaceon glace ceon glace!" the Eevelution blurted, still rolling on the ground.

May blushed and looked with a disbelief at Glaceon.

"You`re crazy! I told you that he`s only a friend of mine, nothing else!" May said in panic. Glaceon only strengthened her laugh. May couldn`t bear it anymore and returned the light-blue creature to her Pokeball.

"Quil?" the fire mouse asked, still sitting on his trainer`s lap. He had never seen May that embarrassed. A brunette only started to pat him, when deep in her head she was thinking about the auburn-eyed trainer.

" _Stupid Glaceon… She doesn`t know anything...! Wait... why am I brooding over her words? I must get ready for the ship_ " – she returned Cyndaquill and went to the bathroom.

* * *

Serena walked through the Pokemon Center`s corridor. She thought about Ash. How will she apologize to him? Will he forgive her? She didn`t notice that on the couch near the entrance was sitting a boy with his Pikachu.

"Serena, wait!" she heard from behind.

"A...Ash?" she paled as she noticed him.

"Hey buddy, can you go upstairs and give us some time alone?" he asked. The electric mouse nodded and ran to the stairs. Serena was still looking at the boy who occupied her mind since last year. She couldn`t say anything, she also started to shiver.

"Ash….. I`m…."

"You don`t have to say anything" Ash stood up from the coach and approached his honey-haired friend" I`m not angry at you or anything. I wanted to apologize to you. I shouldn`t scream at you at the first place. Also, I should phone you guys about spending a night somewhere else. I acted like a dumb, I`m sorry…" Ash rubbed back of his head, while looking at the floor. Serena just smiled and put her hand on his shoulder.

"It`s ok, it was my fault that I yelled at you when you came back. I`m oversensitive and I must control it more. And also I shouldn`t say those words about replacing me with May. I talked to her today and she told me everything."

"She did…?" Ash was shocked.

"Yeah, she`s a very nice person. So, friends again?" Serena asked, while looking at her friend. Ash just smiled.

"Again? We were friends for all the time!" the raven-haired boy laughed and hugged Serena tightly. Her face turned into a dark shade of red, but she was able to turn back into her normal color when he broke a hug.

"Ash? I have a question" the honey-haired girl said carefully.

"Go on" Ash smiled to her. She stood silent for a couple of seconds before she asked.

"I just wanted to ask if I could go with you to your next destination? I mean, to go with you where you`re going next or… Well, you know..."

"Umm... yeah, sure, if you want" Ash shrugged, slightly shocked.

"Really?! Thank you!" she happily jumped at him and gave him a peck on a cheek. Soon she realized what she had done and she ran to the room, blushing like crazy.

"What was that for?" Ash asked himself, rubbing a spot where Serena`s lips were a minute ago. Now he realized that he will travel with two girls and no one else.

" _If Serena acted towards May like this once, I have a bad feeling that our trip will be very interesting… I only hope that May won`t be angry when I tell her that one person also goes with us…_ " he grabbed his phone and chose a number of the certain brunette.

* * *

May was taking a shower when she heard that her phone rang. She wrapped a towel around her torso and walked to the table. She grabbed her phone and answered to the call.

"Hello?" she asked happily.

"May, how`s it going? Are you ready already?" she heard a voice of the raven-haired boy.

"Almost, I was taking a shower at the moment" the brunette looked at the floor, which was full of water now. " _I must clean this later_ " she thought.

"Ok, so I won`t take long. There is a small change in our plans... would you mind... if Serena went with us to Hoenn?"

May was unable to speak. All of her plans were ruined now. So, she won`t be able to spend time with Ash alone? She was waiting for it for so long, and now he just invited a girl who had an obvious crush on him? May was sure that the honey`haired girl won`t let her even approach him.

"Y..Yeah, it`s ok" she mumbled.

"May, is everything ok? You sound strange" Ash asked completely unaware of what he had done.

"Yes, I… just have a headache... Oh, I have another call, we`ll see in two hours, bye!" she hung up and threw a phone on the bed. She stood with her eyes locked on the floor for another fifteen minutes.

"Why, Ash…?" she whispered.


	9. Chapter 9

Serena stormed into the room and locked herself in the bathroom. Clemont went to the gym to talk to his father, so only Bonnie was in the room.

"Please tell Ash that I left the Pokemon Center, ok?" Serena shouted from behind of the door. Before Bonnie could open her mouth, the main door opened and revealed the raven-haired trainer with a strange look on his face.

"Hey Bonnie, is Serena in there?" he asked, looking around the room.

"Noo, she hasn`t been there since today`s morning" Bonnie shrugged. "Maybe she went to the shop for some supplies?"

"Maybe" Ash sighed. "Okay, I`ll better go to May`s hotel to see if she`s ready for our journey" and with those words Ash left the room. Soon, the honey-haired girl walked out of the bathroom with a sigh of relief.

"So, what happened between you two?" Bonnie frowned.

"Umm… well… we reconciled with each other… and when he said that I can go to Hoenn with him… I think I kissed him…" Serena mumbled. Bonnie just stood there with big eyes.

"YOU DID WHAT?!" the small girl shouted. "Wow, you`re really fast, you haven`t confessed your love to him yet and you have already kissed him?"

"Nononono, It was only a peck on the cheek, nothing more!" Serena blushed.

"Well, but you know that it must have been a little weird for him, right?" Bonnie asked, still looking at her friend. "I wouldn`t be surprised if he was scared of you now…"

"DON`T SAY THAT!" Serena yelled. After a couple of seconds she realized what she had done. "I`m sorry, I`m overacting again."

"Ugh, just control yourself and it will be alright" Bonnie facepalmed. " Just remember that boys don`t like mentally unstable girls, and Ash isn`t an exception."

"Ok, ok, now I must finish my preparing for the cruise" Serena quickly ran to her bed and started to pack her clothes. Bonnie just stood there with a worried look on her face.

" _I have a bad feeling about this…_ " she thought while she looked at the nervous honey-haired girl.

* * *

May finished her shower. She dressed in the clothes that she had bought before the contest. Now she was wearing a crimson jacket with a black jeans. Her standard white, red and yellow trainers were replaced by crimson, long boots. She wasn`t wearing any bandanna or gloves, because she decided that she looked better like that. She was going to leave the room when she heard that someone knocked the door. Behind them she noticed a boy with a raven hair standing in the corridor.

"Hey May, would you mind if I came in?" he asked, while looking at the girl shyly.

"Of course not" May smiled and gestured him to sit on a coach "Do you want tea or something to drink?"

"Actually, no, I just wanted to spend some time with you before our cruise" he looked at his watch. "It`s 13:45 so we have at least half an hour" then, he looked at the brunette, you could see a worry in his eyes. "So, when we were talking before you sounded like if something was bothering you. It was about Serena, wasn`t it?"

Girl tried to stay calm, but she just sighed and sat close to Ash.

"Well, I`m a bit disappointed. I was happy that I will travel with you again. But to be honest, I didn`t want anybody else with us this time. You see, after a four years I wanted to spend some time with you alone. Now I`m scared that I would be an impediment for both of you" May said sadly, not turning to the trainer. She started to squeeze her knees with her hands, which was a sign that she was upset.

Ash just looked at her with glittering eyes. It reminded him of the situation in the submarine, when they were searching for Manaphy. May experienced a great pain when the Pokemon, which she treated like her own baby, got lost. She had the same expression back there. He couldn`t stand seeing her like that, so he pulled her into a warm hug and started to talk.

"I`m sorry, May. I wouldn`t agree for this if I knew that it will bother you in any way. I acted like a dumb again, I have never refused anything to my friends, and that`s my biggest weakness..." he sighed. "To be honest, I also wanted to spend some time only with you, thanks to you I had one of the best days of my life yesterday" after those words May looked in his eyes, shocked. "So, promise me that you will never think again about you being an obstacle for me, okay?"

May didn`t respond. She just tightened the hug. After that a smile appeared on his face. The smile that she missed so bad. She couldn`t have been angry at him after what he said to her.

"Ok Ash, I promise I won`t" the brunette said as she snuggled even more into him. They were sitting like that for twenty minutes, until an alarm in May`s phone reminded them that their ship will soon swim out of the port.

* * *

"Where is he?! The cruise will start in just ten minutes!" Serena was yelling when she, Bonnie and Clemont arrived in the port. She was overacting again, it looked like she wasn`t able to control herself after all. Bonnie just sighed.

"Relax, when I was going to the Poke Center, I saw him walking in the contest hall`s direction" Clemont said. "So I think that he and May will soon be here."

Unfortunately, it had a different effect on Serena. Instead of calming her down, it infuriated her even more. She just sat on the bench angry, whispering something very silently. Bonnie sighed again.

"Serena, maybe this wasn`t a good idea to..."

'WHAT DO YOU KNOW?" Serena shouted at the little blonde. When she realized that she was acting hopelessly, she just became silent and locked her eyes on the ground.

"Umm... Oh, I think I see them now!" Clemont informed, slightly surprised by Serena`s outburst. He was right, through the entrance of the port a couple of young people were walking, a brunette girl and a boy with raven hair. They have noticed the trio and started to approach them.

May noticed that Serena was sitting alone on the bench. It looked like something happened there a while ago, but to be honest, the brunette didn`t care about it. She just turned to Ash, who gave her encouraging smile. It had the same, calming effect on her, no matter how many times she was looking at him.

"So, this is it?" Clemont asked, crossing his arms on his chest.

"I think so. I wanted to thank you all. It was a great journey, which I`ll never forget. I promise I`ll visit you soon" Ash said as he went to his blonde friend. They made a high-five and pulled themselves into a man`s hug. Next was Bonnie. She had tears in her eyes, and when Ash turned to her, she jumped in his arms and started to cry.

"Remember that you made us a promise!" she whispered to him. Ash laughed and put her on the pavement. Serena`s farewell wasn`t that spectacular, she just hugged Clemont and snuggled to Bonnie.

"I will wait for you to return here with him" the young blonde whispered to the honey-haired girl. Serena blushed slightly and walked back to Ash. As May didn`t know two siblings for so long, she just made a handshake with them.

"We must go now" Ash said, when he looked at the time. "Goodbye Clemont and Bonnie! Thanks for everything!"

"Goodbye to you too!" Clemont shouted at him. "Come back soon!"

* * *

The boy with two girls arrived on a ship just in time. After a couple of minutes they were far away from the Lumiose City.

"You booked us a room, right?" Serena asked, looking at her bags. "It would be good to put our baggage somewhere."

"Yeah, it`s down this hall, let`s go" Ash said as he leaded two of his friends to the right door. When he opened them, he gasped. It was quite huge. There was a bathroom with a porcelain sink and a bathtub. Next to the bathroom was a medium-sized table with four chairs. Only one thing wasn`t right there…

"But… there`s only two beds" May said, disappointed. She was right, one of the beds was big enough to accommodate two people and there was one for only one person. Two girls looked at each other with a frown. It would be a fight between them soon, because no one of them wanted to see the other one with Ash in one bed. But the boy cooled down the situation just in time.

"Hey, look over there, this bed can be separated" he said as he pulled one side of the bigger bed from each other.

"Oh that`s good, I choose the right one!" Serena said as she jumped onto her bed. May just walked in silence to the left one, while Ash had no other choice than to sleep in the middle of the girls.

They were sitting in their room for another three hours. When Serena fell asleep, Ash decided to go to the roof of the ship. May after a while decided to join him. She approached him when the sun was hiding at the horizon. She decided to stay at his right side. They were silent until the sun completely disappeared from the sky.

"It was beautiful, wasn`t it?" Ash asked, looking at his friend.

"Yeah, one of the best sunsets that I have ever seen" May responded. "But honestly, I didn`t know that you`re such a romantic!" she laughed. Ash couldn`t help giggling.

"What can I say? Sometimes I like to just stand like that and look at the setting sun. I can enjoy the view and clear my mind of many bad thoughts."

May looked at her friend in surprise. Ash was the last person that she would ever consider to talk like this. He saw her shocked expression and giggled for the second time. After that he decided to go to sleep. But before he went to the room, he looked back at his brunette friend.

"I almost forgot: your new look is amazing. You made a right choice about the bandanna: your hair is too beautiful to be hidden under it."

After that he left surprised and blushing girl alone on the roof.


	10. Chapter 10

The brunette was lying on her bed with her eyes locked on the wall. It was 3AM and she wasn`t able to fall asleep. She didn`t know if it was because of that they were travelling by a ship, or something else. Suddenly, she thought about the dreams that she had since she met Ash in Lumiose. Something wasn`t right about them, but she was too tired to think about anything now. She sat on her bed and took a ball from her bag. Soon on the floor a small, green Pokemon appeared. It had flowers instead of hands and wore some kind of a big leaf on its chest.

"Rose?" Pokemon asked, curiously looking at her trainer.

"Hello Roselia" May whispered. "I have a problem. Will you be that kind and help me with it?"

The Pokemon nodded with a smile.

"Great" the brunette smiled at her little friend. "Can you use Sleep Powder on me? I can`t sleep tonight, I don't know why exactly…" May looked at the window. Roselia noticed that her trainer wasn`t telling everything, but Pokemon released a powder from her flowers. The girl quickly fell asleep on her bed.

Roselia looked at her empty Pokeball and again at May. Next, she turned around and noticed two people sleeping in other two beds. An evil smile appeared on the Thorn Pokemon`s face. Roselia went to her trainer`s bag and took a Pokeball which belonged to Venusaur. She pushed a button on it and soon on the floor appeared a huge Pokemon with a big flower on his back.

"Venu?" Venusaur asked, looking at the smaller Pokemon with a frown.

"Rose se, rose selia rose roselia" the Thorn Pokemon explained. Her bigger friend smiled when she realized what Roselia had on her mind. A Seed Pokemon released her vines and moved the honey-haired girl to a bed where the raven-haired boy was sleeping. When their work was done, both of Pokemon giggled quietly and returned to their balls.

* * *

May was the first to wake up. She yawned and stretched her arms. She smiled when she realized that she didn`t have any nightmares this night. Her smile soon disappeared when she saw a pair of teens laying on the same bed next to her. She thought that she was still dreaming, so she pinched her skin. Well, it did hurt.

A girl slowly stood up and walked to Ash and Serena. Although deep in her heart she felt a pain, May must have admired that it looked cute. She decided to wake Ash with her favorite method and leaned close to him.

"Ash, the breakfast is ready…" May whispered. That did the trick; after a couple of seconds his eyes opened. They grew even bigger when he noticed a girl cuddled in his chest. He looked at May with a scared expression.

"Hey, I don`t know what happened, but it looked like you both were enjoying it" May laughed.

"Umm… I isn`t what it looks like..." Ash slowly picked Serena up and put her in her own bed. "Man, this night was crazy, first these strange dreams and now this" he sighed. "May, you were talking about the breakfast, huh?

"You just woke up and you`re already hungry?" she giggled. "All right let`s go buy something."

Two of them left the room. Ash locked the door and turned to his friend. She had a worried look on her face.

"You said something about a strange dream you had, right?" the brunette asked.

"Yeah, I think so" Ash frowned. "So, what`s about it?"

"I`m just curious what it was about, that's all" May shrugged.

"Well, I was in the forest. One girl was there with me, but I can`t remember her face. Suddenly, someone punched me in the stomach and grabbed her. I couldn`t do anything, I just saw that he carried her to the helicopter and flew away" Ash told while they were walking to the café.

"You`re not alone with these 'dreams', you know?" May said. "A few days ago I had a dream where a big monster threw you right in the volcano" she shivered at the memory. Ash noticed it and placed a hand on her back. She turned her head to see Ash with a big smile on his face.

"It`s ok, it was just a dream! I`m here with you, and I`m not going to fall out of a volcano" he laughed. "It isn`t worth your nerves, really."

"I still can`t find out how are you able to calm me down that quick every time when I`m nervous" she winked at the trainer. "Maybe you should work as a psychologist, or something."

"Well, I don`t think that it`s a good idea" he sweatdropped. "Ok, we`re here. So, what do you want to eat?"

* * *

Serena was dreaming about Ash. Well it isn`t a surprise, but a dream was very realistic. She even felt his warm chest. She could tell that it was real…

But soon this feeling disappeared. She woke up alone in the room.

"They must have left for the breakfast, well, I think I`ll join them" she thought. A honey-haired girl quickly changed her pajamas into her normal clothes and ran out of the room, not noticing that she wasn`t sleeping in her own bed.

* * *

May took a sip of her coffee. This day was starting really great, excepting an awkward situation between Ash and Serena, naturally.

"So, you didn`t tell me what happened between you too" she said with a frown. To be honest, she didn`t want to know, but her curiousness has won again.

"The only thing I can tell you is that it isn`t what it looked like" Ash said. "I really did nothing!"

"But you know that you didn`t have to do anything...?" May started to tease him, but she stopped when she noticed a hopeless look on his face. "Hey, relax, I wouldn`t consider you to do such a thing, at least not now! But I`m still curious about what happened"

"I would tell you if I knew the answer" Ash hid his face in his hands. "I knew that some girls are attracted of me, but I didn`t know that Serena could have done something like this! At first she kissed me and now…"

"SHE DID WHAT?!" May shouted. Her coffee had landed on the floor. Ash just frowned at her behavior, but after a while a smile appeared on his face.

"Well, I never considered that you could be jealous of me, May" the raven-haired boy giggled. "But don`t worry, it was only a peck on a cheek, she was happy that I let her go with us, that`s all."

"Ha! You`re very funny Ash" May crossed her arms on her chest and looked with an annoyed glare at the trainer. "I was only shocked that a girl kissed you. You were too focused on Pokemon battles through your journeys, so you couldn`t have noticed that not only Serena likes you in 'that' way."

"Hey, I don`t think that Serena is in love with me or something, maybe it was a cold night and she only wanted to warm up" Ash said reproachfully. "Besides, it wasn`t a first kiss that I received in my life!"

"Kisses from your mom don`t count, you know?" May giggled.

"I`m telling the truth! Ask Brock or Misty about that, they will confirm it" Ash said with a smile. "And I can`t remember any of these girls that you`re talking about."

"Do you remember a person whose name is Anabel?" May asked. "She was all over you and it was visible you know…"

Ash opened his mouth to say something, but he decided to remain silent and to think about May`s words. Now when he looked back at this, he could confirm that she was acting unusual. Was he that blind? If he was, how many girls gave him the hints of their attraction towards him?

"Hello? Ash, are you there?" May waved her hand in front of his face. "What happened?"

"Nothing really important" Ash said with a smile. "But you were right May, I was very dense back there"

"You don`t say?" May laughed.

"Ha ha ha, very funny" he said sarcastically. "I only hope that now I`ll be able to notice all of those hints earlier than after 4 years" he laughed himself, but suddenly he decided to ask his friend about something. "Hey May, do you have your eye on someone?"

"Who, me?" she asked, surprised by the question. A blush appeared on her face, but it quickly faded away. "Noo, not really. Besides, I don`t need a boyfriend, at least now. And what about you?"

"Well, there is one person..." he said. "But it`s not important right now. Maybe someday I`ll tell you, but right now we should get prepared for leaving the ship" and with those words he stood up from his seat. Suddenly, someone bumped into him and the boy fell on the floor. Soon, he noticed a certain honey-haired girl standing above him with a worried look.

'Is everything ok?" Serena asked. She was focusing only on the raven-haired trainer, so she couldn`t see that May was blankly staring at the table.

" _So, he has an eye on someone_ " she thought " _I wonder who this girl is…_ "

"I`m ok, just be careful next time" Ash rubbed his shoulder. "Now we must go pack our things, we`ll be in Petalburg in twenty minutes. You`re going with us, May?"

"Wha… Yeah, sure" May quickly regained consciousness and walked with her friends to their room.

* * *

Syer was sitting in a restaurant in Petalburg City. It was raining, so going to the restaurant was his only option to stay dry. He ordered a Latte Macchiato and looked at his phone. There was a message from his boss.

" _Remember to be there at tomorrow`s evening, I`m counting on you_ "

The boy took a sip of a coffee. Finally, it was going to be interesting. He smiled slightly as he thought about his plan. Capturing the league champion will be a great achievement. And his Pokemon could be useful too, especially that yellow mouse, which he used in the final.

The young spy took another sip. When the heavy rain came to the end, he walked out of the building and disappeared in the shadows.


	11. Chapter 11

Hoenn is known for its warm climate, and it wasn`t different that day. Many people decided to spend their free time on the beach in Petalburg City. So did our three teenagers, who were sitting on the sunbeds under a giant umbrella.

"It`s so hot in here, I`m melting" Serena grumbled. Even if she was wearing only a bikini, it was visible that she sweated a little too much. Unlike her, the raven-haired boy and the brunette were relaxing and it looked like the warmth didn`t bothered them that much.

"Relax Serena, you just have to get used to it and soon you`ll be ok" Ash said, not turning to his honey-haired friend.

"I understand that you were travelling for a long time now and you`re immune to this type of weather, but what about you May?" Serena asked, still sweating like crazy.

"You know, I grew up in this town, so it`s normal for me" May mumbled without looking away from a colorful magazine that she was reading.

"Yeah, that was a stupid question" Serena said, embarrassed. "So, are we going to lie down in here all day, or maybe we can do something more?"

"I think we can release our Pokemon, a fresh ocean air will be good for them" Ash suggested.

"That`s very good idea Ash!" Serena squealed. May just rolled her eyes while looking at the honey-haired girl`s pathetic compliments.

"Ok, so here they come!" Ash threw his five Pokeballs in the air. Two girls from his team did the same after a few seconds. Soon on the sand appeared fourteen different Pokemon.

From Ash`s team there was Greninja, his loyal Water and Dark type, Noivern, which evolved from Noibat before the Kalos Conference, Sceptile, the most powerful Grass type owned by a boy, Talonflame, Fire and Flying type from Kalos, Flareon – the newest Pokemon in a boy`s team, which he caught a few days before his final gym battle, and of course Pikachu, which was sleeping on the sand near his trainer`s sunbed.

From Serena`s team there was Delphox (her Fire and Psychic type starter Pokemon), Pancham, Fighting type and Sylveon, which was a Fairy type.

From May`s team there was Blaziken, her Fire and Fighting type starter, two Grass and Poison types, which were Venusaur and Roselia, a Fire type Cyndaquill, and last, but not least, an Ice type, Glaceon.

From all of the Pokemon it was visible that Sceptile and Blaziken were the happiest to see each other. They quickly ran away from the others to spend some time with training. Greninja sat down on the sand near the sea shore and observed at Cyndaquill, Talonflame and Pancham, which were playing tag. Soon, Delphox, Noivern and Venusaur joined him. Sylveon tried to flirt with Ash`s Fire type Eeveelution, but without much success. Flareon was too focused on a certain Fresh Snow Pokemon. Both of them quickly introduced themselves and started to chase each other in a friendly way. Roselia didn`t move from May and was sitting on her lap now.

"Wow, I didn`t know that you caught Roselia' Ash said, surprised.

"Well, she`s in my team for a year now" May started to talk. "I found her near the Mauville City. She was hurt and I took care of her. We quickly made a bond between ourselves, right?" May asked; Roselia squealed happily and hugged her trainer. "I assume that the rest of your Pokemon is from Kalos. So, when did you catch a Flareon?"

"It was two months ago; I found him when he was battling a Pangoro. Let`s say that he easily won this fight. He wasn't friendly at first, so I had to fight him. When Pikachu defeated him, I offered that I can help him to train and he agreed " Ash said as he turned to his Fire Pokemon. "And it looks like that now he`s making friends with your Glaceon."

"Aww, they look so cute together!" May giggled as she looked at the Eeveelutions – I think they can make a great team in the future.

"If you say so" Ash laughed.

Serena was the only one without a smile on a face. She tried to calm down her Sylveon, which wasn`t very happy about this situation.

"It`s ok, one day he will understand that you are a perfect match for him..." Serena whispered to her Pokemon. Well, It didn`t help. Sylveon was still depressed, so Serena decided to return her into her ball.

"I heard that we were planning to go to the gym, right?" the irritated honey-haired girl asked. "You know, it`s 3PM already."

"You`re right, I almost forgot about this" Ash said. "Ok guys, it`s time to return" after that he took his balls and returned all of his Pokemon. May did the same. But there was one problem: Flareon and Glaceon were avoiding red beams and it was impossible to convince them to go back into their Pokeballs.

"So, what will we do with them now? May asked, rubbing her head.

"If they want to stay, then it`s ok for me" Ash smiled and started to walk to the city. Pikachu have woke up already and jumped on the raven-haired boy`s shoulder. Girls quickly followed him. Behind them a Fire and an Ice type Pokemons were walking closely to each other.

* * *

"Wait!" Ash shouted while they were walking near the Pokemon Center. "I must call someone, can we stop for a couple of minutes?"

"It`s ok, we`ll wait here for you" Serena said with a smile. When he disappeared behind the door, she turned to the brunette coordinator with an irritated glare.

"Ok, that's enough. First, can you separate your Glaceon from Ash`s Flareon?" the honey-haired girl asked.

"But why should I? It looks like they are enjoying themselves" May asked, quite shocked.

"Let me explain this to you: my Sylveon was trying to impress Flareon for a long time, and now you have ruined it with your stupid Pokemon" Serena hissed.

May tried to stay calm, but her patience was going to an end. The honey-haired girl was incredibly annoying since they left Kalos. She was acting differently than a few days ago.

"For your information, my Glaceon isn`t stupid, furthermore, maybe she`s more intelligent than you" May said silently "And you should realize that if your Sylveon hadn`t make any progress until now, maybe she isn`t good enough for Flareon?

"Take that back! And besides, my next request to you is about Ash. I only want to inform you that he is mine. Don`t try anything on him, or you will regret this" Serena hissed once more.

"Really? I didn`t see your name on him or anything" May said with a confident smile. "And he didn`t tell me about him having a girlfriend. So if you want me to stay away from him, you will be disappointed, my dear" May passed by Serena and headed to Pokemon Center. "I noticed that you have feelings for him a few days ago, but I`m not going to let you take him away. You just simply don`t deserve him" she giggled evilly. "And the only thing that I have ever regretted in my life was leaving to Johto without Ash with me. I don't think that you can do something worse to me than this."

After that the brunette disappeared in the building. Serena just stood in the same spot for a few minutes and tried to calm down. But it wasn`t possible. She cursed a coordinator under her breath and started to think about a plan to get Ash only for herself.

* * *

"Hello Ash! What can I do for you?" an older man asked from the other side of the videophone. Professor Oak was one of the most known scientists in the world, but for Ash he was a very special kind of person. It was him who gave Ash a Pikachu when he was ten, and in some cases he replaced a father to the boy.

"Hi there Professor!" Ash responded with a smile. "I wanted to exchange one of my Pokemon."

"Ok, which of them do you want?" the gray-haired man asked.

"I would like to exchange Talonflame for Charizard" Ash said with a confident smile.

"Good choice, Charizard misses you very much, and he was training very hard for all the time" Oak said. "Please put Talonflame`s Pokeball in the machine. I`m sure it will quickly make friends with Swellow and the crew."

"Great, thank you Professor" Ash waved to him. Soon the call ended and Charizard appeared in a Pokeball. Ash clipped it to his belt and was about to leave, when he noticed May heading to him. She had an uneasy expression on her face.

"May, what`s the matter? Is something wrong?" Ash asked with a worry.

"Everything`s okay" May said with a forced smile. "I only wanted to check if you`re done by now."

"I can see that something is bothering you" Ash crossed arms on his chest. "Come on, you can tell me anything, remember?"

The girl sighed and looked in his auburn eyes. She could never lie to him.

"Well… It`s about Serena..." May started. "She acts weird again."

"Ugh, really" Ash sighed. "What`s now?"

"Well, she had objections about Glaceon and Flareon spending time together" May informed. "You know, it`s really hard to stay calm when she`s near."

"It wasn`t a good idea to take her with us, I knew it" Ash rubbed his head. – "I must talk to her again."

"Well, I think that we should go now If we want to reach my dad`s gym before dusk" May said and turned to the entrance, when suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"May, just don't worry about it all. It`s Serena who has a problem here, it isn`t worth your nerves" Ash said, looking deeply into her eyes.

May nodded and soon both of them left the Pokemon Center. On the couch not far away was sitting a silver-haired boy in a black uniform. He took a phone from his pocket and called someone.

"Our target is on the way, we`re starting the first part of our plan now" Syer said quietly. After that he slowly left the building.


	12. Chapter 12

"And here we are!" May said happily as they stopped in front of a huge building. The other two looked at the gym with big eyes.

"Well, It has changed since the last time I was here" Ash spoke after a minute of silence between the teens. "I remember that it wasn`t THAT big back there!"

"Dad must have done some improvements and it just happened" May shrugged. "Besides, a member of Elite Four must have a big battlefield. And there are tribunes in there too, so that`s why it is so huge."

"Norman is a member of Elite Four? Wow, that`s great!" Ash grinned. When he battled Norman four years ago, he knew that the gym leader had a certain something. And the battle with him was the toughest of all Ash`s battles in Hoenn. So boy wasn`t shocked at this information.

Serena said nothing about this. She just looked at the gym and back at May.

" _She is a daughter of Elite Four member? Wow, this isn`t the best information for me…_ " she thought as they entered the building. The corridor was painted green, in some places there were plants which looked like a small palm trees. On the floor was a carpet, also in green color. There were also four pairs of the doors. Soon one of them opened and revealed a woman with a brown, curly hair.

"Hi mummy, what`s up?" May asked as she ran to the woman and hugged her. Caroline returned the hug and looked at her daughter. It was visible that they were relatives; the only difference was in their hairstyle.

"Hello my dear, nothing important happened since you left" Caroline looked ahead and noticed a familiar boy with a raven hair and an unknown honey-haired girl. She walked to Ash and hugged him, to his surprise. But he hugged her back soon.

"It`s good to see you Ash, but you could visit us sooner, you know?" Caroline giggled and turned to Serena. "And you are…?"

"I`m Serena, nice to meet you, Mrs. Caroline" Serena held out her hand, which May`s mom shook tightly.

"Why don`t we go to the living room? I`ll make us a tea, make yourself at home" Caroline said as she went to the kitchen.

Ash, May and Serena entered the room. This one was painted red, had a furnace near the coach, in front of which was a huge TV. Not far away stood a big table with six chairs. On the furnace were some frames with many photos. On one of them Serena spotted five people: there was Caroline, May, a man, probably Norman, a boy, who was about eight years old and Ash, but much younger. All of them were smiling, adults stood on the second plan, behind the kids. A small boy was petting Pikachu, which was in his arms. Ash stood with hands crossed on his chest, and May was winking at the photographer. She also showed a V symbol with her hand. She and Ash were standing close to each other. " _Too close_ ", Serena thought.

"Hey, I remember that photo!" Ash said as he looked over honey-haired girl`s shoulder. "It was after my battle with Norman. Man, it feels like it was yesterday…"

"I agree with you" Caroline said as she came back with some glasses on a tray. "And about that battle, after you all set off Norman told me that it was the best fight in his gym leader`s career. For years he was telling young trainers about a boy with a Pikachu" she giggled. "And he`s your big fan too. He watched all of your battles in big tournaments. Besides, congratulations for your title, being a league champion is a great thing."

"Umm, thanks Caroline" Ash rubbed his head, slightly embarrassed. "By the way, do you know where`s Norman?"

"He is battling now. You know that he doesn`t like when someone interrupts into his battles, so we must wait here for him" Caroline informed and sat on a couch. "So, what are you doing here, in Hoenn? I thought that after achieving such a great title you will stay in Kalos for a while?"

"Well, I don`t like to be in the center of attention, and I was lucky that people in Kalos weren`t interested in stalking me" Ash laughed. "When I won the Kalos Conference, I felt that there`s nothing else for me to do there, so I wanted to come back to Pallet Town. But there was a small change in my plans, thanks to your daughter" he turned to May, who winked at him. "And now we`re travelling through this region again."

"And where are you going to next?" Caroline asked.

"I thought that it would be nice to meet Max again, but he might be anywhere now" Ash said. Caroline laughed.

"At the moment he is in Lavaridge Town. He fought there in a gym two days ago, but his fight was interrupted by some criminals" she frowned. "His match was postponed until next week, so if you go there tomorrow, you can catch him there. Maybe you`ll make it in time to see his battle, who knows?" Caroline giggled. "But for now, I suggest you to stay here for a night. We have two free rooms at the moment, so Ash, you can sleep in Max`s room, it`s on the first floor, and Serena can spend the night in our guest room on the second floor."

"Thank you Caroline, we appreciate it" Ash stood up. "Now, if you excuse me, I`ll go leave my backpack upstairs."

"It`s ok Ash, dinner will be in two hours, so don`t be late!" Caroline smiled to him as he left the room.

"I will go too, Mrs. Caroline" Serena said and left the room before the woman could respond.

"Well, she acts very oddly, I must admit" Caroline turned to her daughter. "But it`s ok, I wanted to talk to you anyway."

"About what?" May asked with a surprised tone.

"You know, I noticed a weird tension between you and that girl, Serena, right?" Caroline asked. "Normally I would say that you are contest rivals, but while Ash is also with you…" she made a wide smile, the same when she was teasing May about Drew four years ago.

"No, it`s not what you think!" May jumped off the coach, shocked. "Ash is only my friend, I don`t think about him in any other way!"

"It`s ok my dear, to be honest, I prefer Ash one million times more than this boy, his name was Drew, right?" Caroline giggled.

"Mom!" May moaned. "How many times shall I repeat, that there was nothing between me and Drew? And please, don`t tease me about Ash, we`re only friends, don`t make me say that again"

"Ok, so tell me, what happened between you and Serena?" Caroline frowned.

"Ugh… Well, it`s a different case with her" May rubbed her head. "She is crazy about Ash, and when I say crazy, I mean C.R.A.Z.Y. She was able to make me upset at least two time in the last three days."

"And… Why did she make you upset?" Caroline didn`t want to leave this topic.

"For example, today in the morning she had objections about my Glaceon, who became friends with Ash`s Flareon and spent some time with him. And there was more of it!" May began to give vent to her anger. "She ordered me to stand off Ash! I can tell you that she doesn`t deserve him! She`s mentally unstable and mad and…"

"You don`t feel anything to Ash, right?" Caroline asked with a smile. "So, why are you saying those things about Serena with so much aversion to her?"

May didn`t say anything. She looked at her mother for a while and locked her eyes on the floor soon.

"May, I only want to tell you, that it`s visible that you and your "only friend, nothing more" are closer than you think" Caroline became more serious. "And I only wanted to know if you feel something more to him. But when you still insist about it all, I have no choice but to give up on this topic" Caroline stood up and directed towards the kitchen. "But one more thing: don`t say it to your father, but if I were twenty years younger, I would say that Ash is quite a catch!" she winked at her daughter and quickly ran out of the living room.

"MOM!" May yelled, embarrassed, but her mother already left her alone in the room.

" _Sometimes I can`t stand her_ " May thought. " _Why am I still thinking about her words? Me being in love with Ash? It`s ridiculous!_ "

The brunette left the room and went to her room, which was next to Max`s room. In there was Ash, at this moment he was probably talking to Pikachu about something, because she heard little rodent`s squeals. When she opened the door to her room, something flied to her with enormous speed. It was Beautifly, the first ever Pokemon that she caught through her adventure. The Coordinator petted her Pokemon happily.

"Hi there Beautifly! You missed me, huh?" May asked. "Maybe I`ll take you on journey now, what do you say?"

Beautifly happily nodded and sat on her trainer`s head.

"I`ll take that as "yes"" May giggled and fell on her bed. Unexpectedly her eyes began to close.

" _Dinner will be soon, but a short nap won`t hurt anyone_ " May thought as she fell asleep with her Beautifly cuddled in her arms.

* * *

May was in exactly the same fortress as always. She walked through the same corridor. On the wall to the left a third pair of the door appeared. May shrugged and opened them. Soon she was on her dad`s battlefield. She stood on one side of it, while on the other side some girl was yelling something. When May listened to it for a while, she was able to understand three words: "He", "Is", "Mine". It didn`t take long for the brunette to recognize that voice. It was Serena.

Suddenly a Pangoro appeared on the field. It slowly started to move in May`s direction. After a while he started to run towards her while preparing his fists to hit her. May was shocked. She couldn`t do anything. Her legs weren`t listening to her, she could only wait for the approaching hit. She closed her eyes, but felt nothing after it. She carefully opened her eyes and realized that Pangoro was lying on the floor, unconscious. She turned her eyes to a red creature, which appeared near her. She recognized it as a Flareon.

Ten, maybe fifteen seconds passed until an Eeveelution was sucked into a red beam of light. May turned back and noticed a trainer. He had no face, but she knew who he was. She heard a familiar voice.

" _It`s ok now, she won`t harass you anymore, now wake up_ "

"What?" May asked, surprised. "But I`m not sleeping…"

" _Wake up_ "

"What are you talking about…" May started to feel awkward.

" _May, wake up_ "

* * *

"Wake up May, it`s dinner time! – screamed someone above the brunette. When she opened her eyes, she noticed her mother with a worried look.

"Finally you woke up, I began to worry about you! – Caroline said – When you`re ready, come downstairs, everyone are already there.

May was confused. She had another weird dream in this week.

"Maybe I should go to the doctor with this? – she asked herself when she was walking down the stairs. She entered the living room and noticed that four people were sitting around the table. Ash and Serena sat on one side while Norman and Caroline were on the other side.

"Hi daddy" May said when she sat down on one of the free chairs.

"May, it`s good to see you" Norman asked with a smile, but his expression quickly changed. "Is everything all right? You were sleeping for so long."

"I`m all right, I`m only a little bit tired" May responded.

"Good. Anyway, Ash, I`m very curious how did you manage to take down that Heatran" Norman turned his look at Ash.

"Well, as you know, Heatran is a powerful one, but he`s also big, which means that he is slow" Ash started to talk. "Pikachu is very fast, so Heatran couldn`t dodge any of it`s attacks, no matter how strong he was. So, our Quick Attack was super effective. That`s all, I think."

"You know what?" Norman asked "We can do a battle tomorrow at the gym if you want. We can check how much we both improved since the last time."

"You bet" Ash raised his fist in the air. "Tomorrow at 12AM I`ll be ready!"

"So it`s decided. And now let`s enjoy this delicious meal that my lovely wife prepared for us" when Norman said this, Caroline giggled. "Bon Appetit to everyone!"


	13. Chapter 13

Another sunny day in Petalburg Town has started. On the roads were many people that have been able to wake up already. After looking at their faces you could see that everyone were happy. As if their lifes were free from any worries. The Pokemon which were with them looked exactly the same, so not only humans were affected by this town`s atmosphere.

In this city there was only one person who wasn`t happy at this time. In Norman`s house was a room on the first floor. This room belonged to his daughter, the Top Coordinator of the Johto region, May. She was probably the only one in the whole city to not yet be on her feet at 10AM. She lied on her bed with her loyal butterfly-like creature cuddled in a pillow next to her. The Pokemon was sleeping peacefully, but you couldn`t tell the same thing about its trainer. May had a big frown on her face and was clenching her fists. She definitely had an uneasy dream.

" _Normally I would say that you are contest rivals, but while Ash is also with you…"_

She relived the scene from yesterday for all night long. Not to mention that she wasn`t able to fall asleep until 2PM.

 _"You don`t feel anything for Ash, right? So, why are you saying those things about Serena with so much aversion to her?"_

The frown on her face became bigger. She was helpless. Even if she tried to forget about everything what was happening in her head since her contest in Kalos, she wasn`t able to forget. She still insisted that he meant nothing for her.

 _"I only want to tell you that it`s visible that you and your "only friend, nothing more" are closer than you think."_

That was too much. She woke up immediately as this sentence made its way into her head. She was breathing heavily and looked like she just saw a ghost. Beautifly also woke up, but against her will, because the poor Pokemon fell on the floor. When she jumped on the bed, she could see that her trainer had a hard time now. Unexpectedly, May only shook her head for a few times and looked at her Bug type.

"Oh, hi there Beautifly" May said silently, still rubbing her eyes. "How was your sleep?"

Beautifly didn`t answer her. The Butterfly Pokemon still gazed at the girl with a visible worry. May wasn't blind: when she noticed it she quickly smiled and hugged the first creature that he ever caught during her journey.

"Hey, it`s ok. I had some strange dreams, but I`m ok. What do you say about going down and eating something?" May asked as she let go her Pokemon. Beautifly happily flied to her trainer again and landed on her hair.

"As always, I`ll take it as 'yes' " she giggled and jumped out of her bed "And, after the breakfast we can watch how Ash and daddy improved their skill in battling!"

* * *

"This is a battle between the member of the Elite Four, Norman, and the Kalos Conferrence champion Ash Ketchum. It will be one on one with no substitutions!" the referee yelled. It was 12AM and battle was about to begin. Both of the competitors were already on battlefield. May, Serena and Caroline were sitting on the tribunes. All of them couldn`t wait for any longer.

"Ash will win, I`m sure about it! " Serena said happily. When she looked at her crush now, she noticed that he turned his hat backwards. This was the sign that he wouldn`t go easy on his opponent. May also saw it, but she remained silent.

"I wouldn`t be surprised if Norman was the winner" Caroline crossed her arms on her chest as she snuggled in her seat. "He trained hard all time long and learned many tricks. So Ash will have a tough job. And what about you, my dear?: She turned to the younger brunette. "Who do you support?"

"I don`t know" May shrugged. "I have the same problem which I had four years ago. I want Dad to win, but I don`t want to see Ash lose either" she made a goofy smile. Caroline turned her eyes to the battlefield. Well, she knew her daughter`s type anyway, but she preferred to be quiet about it. After May`s outburst yesterday it wouldn`t be a good idea to tease her more.

"Well Ash, since you`re the guest, I`ll let you choose your Pokemon first" Norman said calmly.

"Ok, Flareon, I choose you!" the boy yelled as he threw a Pokeball in the air. Soon, a Fire Eeveelution appeared on the field. He gazed at the adult trainer who stood in front of him.

"So, a Fire type, huh? Go, Vigoroth!" it was Norman`s turn to release his Pokemon. A Slacker-like jumped out of the ball and looked at his opponent. The atmosphere was becoming really tense.

"Ok Flareon, use Rock Smash!" Ash shouted; his Pokemon hit the floor with hid small paws and a dozen of small rocks flew out of the ground. Flareon bumped them into his opponent with it`s tail.

"Dodge it, Vigoroth" Norman spoke calmly. "I must say that I`m impressed that your Flareon knows Rock Smash, it`s quite unusual for its kind" he turned to his Wild Monkey Pokemon. "Now Vigoroth, use Earthquake!"

Vigoroth did what his trainer called for and he hit the ground with his full power. It started to shake and soon many cracks appeared on the floor. Flareon tried to avoid them, but to his misfortune one of them opened straight under him. The Fire Eeveelution disappeared in the darkness. Ash couldn`t do anything, he just stood there with an angry look.

Vigoroth ran up to the crack, ready to end this battle. He jumped into it, but soon he left the hole, flying away on a big flame. Straight after him Flareon jumped out of the crack. He looked like he was hurt, but his rage worked perfectly as a painkiller.

"Flareon, can you still fight?" Ash asked, slightly worried, but his Pokemon gave him an arrogant look and huffed at the raven-haired boy. It was a sign that he still had some energy. "All right then, use Ember!" Ash yelled.

"Vigoroth, don`t let him do that and use your Flamethrower to neutralize his attack!" Norman shouted. Both of the attacks collided and made a huge explosion. When the smoke disappeared, both Pokemon rushed at each other. They both used their short-range attacks, but the other one always dodged it.

"Let`s end this with Flare Blitz!" Ash shouted. His Pokemon cloaked himself in fire and charged at Vigoroth.

"Use Focus Punch!" Norman yelled, but it was too late. Flareon hit the target with his maximum strength and Vigoroth flew away to his trainer, unconscious.

"Vigoroth is unable to battle, the winner is Flareon!" the referee announced. Norman returned his Pokemon and walked to Ash to congratulate him.

"It was a great battle. You trained your Flareon very well" Norman held out the hand, which Ash shook gently.

"Gee, thanks! But that Earthquake was amazing, I thought that I have already lost when you used it" Ash responded to a member of the Elite Four.

Three females watched this scene from afar. Two of them were grinning like crazy, the other one had a small smile on her face. The latter turned to the younger brunette and noticed that she was happier than four years ago, after Ash`s and Norman`s first battle.

" _Well, it looks like you resolved your dilemma after al_ l" Caroline thought.

* * *

It was before the dinner, when Ash took Serena aside to talk with her.

"Serena, do you have any plans for today`s evening?" Ash asked. He had a blank expression on his face, so the girl couldn`t say that he was angry or happy.

"No, why do you ask?" Serena asked. Well, it wasn`t a question which you can hear from Ash very often, so in her head many thoughts appeared.

"Well, I would like to invite you to the restaurant" Ash smiled slightly. "You know, there is one near the gym; they serve Italian food, and believe me: the pasta is great there!"

"Oh Ash, I would love to go with you!" Serena responded happily and took the boy into a hug, which he accepted and responded soon. It was a cute scene, even for Caroline, who saw everything from the other room.

" _Okay, I didn`t expect that before, I must admit_ " she thought. " _But maybe I can use this to help May realize a few things? Hmm? Who knows, who knows?_ "

* * *

May was washing the dishes in the kitchen. She offered her help to her mother, because she felt guilty that Caroline must have done all of this alone yesterday. But she wasn`t paying attention to the plates that she was holding now.

"A _sh was great back there. It makes him even more amazing, that he caught this Flareon only two months ago, and it was still able to beat dad`s Vigoroth, which was trained for years! I`m not surprised that the trainer as strong as Ash was able to win the league!_ "

"Honey, have you done this already?" Caroline walked into the kitchen with an evil smile on her face. May didn`t turn to her, so she wasn`t aware of what would be done soon.

"No, but it`s one of the last plates, so in three minutes I will be free" May responded quickly "Why are you asking?"

"Well" Caroline tried her best to sound normal. "I heard that Ash invited Serena to the restaurant, so I thought that maybe you are going with them, but in this case…"

"HE DID WHAT?!" May shouted and turned to her mother. Suddenly a sound of broken glass could be heard.

"You heard me: he invited her to the restaurant" Caroline made an irritated expression. "And that was one of the plates from a set that I have received for my wedding, you know?"

"Oh… I`m very sorry…" May mumbled, very embarrassed. She took a brush and cleaned the floor off the glass.

"The only thing that I don`t understand is why did you react like that? It`s only a date, besides, you see him only as a friend, don`t you?" Caroline turned to leave the kitchen. She sounded seriously, but the truth was that she was barely able to not laugh.

May approached the window in complete silence. When she noticed two certain people walking down the road, her heart nearly broke in half.

* * *

"No, I`m not interested!" a yell could be heard in one of the Petalburg`s less visited streets. It was dark in there, but it wasn`t very hard to recognize two persons that were talking there.

"Look, I want to help you" a silver-haired boy tried to convince the other one "If you help me, I will let you to keep that brunette girl. I know that you are in love with her, so why do you still resist?!"

"I`m not crazy!" the boy with a green hair responded "I love her and I can`t do such a horrible thing. I don`t want to get her with the force, I`m not that type of man."

"That`s your choice. In this case, I can`t assure you that she won`t be hurt or anything when I`m done" Syer said while he was walking away.

"DON`T YOU DARE TOUCH HER!" Drew threw himself at the spy, but was taken down quickly. Syer brushed off his hands and turned in the city centre`s direction.

" _It`s all right, I still can to this by myself_ " he thought " _Well, that brunette is quite nice, maybe when I`ll be done with Ketchum, I can take her for myself?_ " he smiled at this thought. Soon he disappeared in the shadows.


	14. Chapter 14

"Ugh... My head..." Drew mumbled, while lying on the ground. It was an hour after the incident between him and a silver-haired man, and well, it didn`t end good for the coordinator. With a giant headache he got up and walked out of the alley. He noticed that it was late now, but he didn`t care about it.

He reached the city centre. Well, even at this moment there were many people. But Petalburg is known for its night life, there are many clubs and restaurants. And it isn`t that warm in the night, so going somewhere now was a better option than sweating in the full sun. As soon as he was able to think again he started to look around him. " _Maybe someone can help me_?" he thought.

"Excuse me madam" he asked an elder woman who was sitting on the bench. "I`m looking for a friend of mine, her name is May. She is a brunette with blue eyes. Do you know where I can find her?

"Oh, I think you`re talking about Norman`s daughter" the woman smiled to the boy. "You`re not the first to ask about her, you know? She has a lot of admirers, but I still see her walking alone" a sad smile appeared on her face, but soon it disappeared. She turned to her right side and pointed in this direction. "There is Norman`s gym. Although I haven`t heard that she came back to the town already, so it`s the only place where you can possibly catch her."

"Ok, thank you madam" Drew bowed to the woman and ran in the gym`s direction. There was no time for anything. Only May`s security was important right now.

" _I must warn her_ " he thought. After a while he was starting to lost his breath, but he didn`t stop for any moment.

" _I won`t forgive myself if anything happens to her_ " Drew gritted his teeth as he felt a pain in his ankle. Not heeding about it he slowly approached his destination.

* * *

The restaurant which a pair of teens visited wasn`t big; there were only four tables, but it kept the climate of the Mediterranean country. In the air you could smell various spices. The interior of the restaurant was decorated with many plants and pictures. It was representing a seaside mainly, but there was one that broke this trend. It showed a typical Italian valley in the daylight. It was placed above one of the tables, which was located next to a window. It was nice place to sit, so it wasn`t a surprise that Ash chose this one without thinking.

As they ordered the food, Serena started to examine everything. As a Pokemon Performer she was able to notice all of the small details in the décor. And after a while she could say that everything was perfectly adjusted to each other. It was for sure a nice place for a date. " _A date._ " Even after a long time she was blushing when she thought about a possibility of this. And now, it was true. The girl couldn`t be happier, even winning Master Class wouldn`t make her as happy.

"Wow, it`s a nice place, I must admit" Ash looked around and turned to Serena. "I wish that the food there is as good as it smells…"

"Oh, I`m sure of it. I mean, just look at the people here" she gestured for him to look at the other tables. "They don`t look disgusted to me."

"Yeah, you`re right" Ash smiled, but his expression changed quickly. "Serena, as much as I would like to not mention this, I want to ask you a few questions, If you don`t mind, of course."

"Ok, I`m listening" the enamored girl wouldn`t predict what words were going to leave Ash`s mouth.

"You see, I noticed that since we left Kalos you started to act… strange" it was visible that it was hard for him to talk about it. "There were some strange situations which I don`t want to bring up. And recently May told me that you had some objections about Flareon and Glaceon walking together. It sounds hilarious, isn`t it?" he sighed. "I only want to know why are you acting like this. You`re one of my best friends, Serena, and I see that something is bothering you. I want to help you if it`s possible" he was gazing at her, expecting for an answer.

Serena was surprised, and disappointed. " _So, it isn`t a real date? He only invited me here to ask me about all of this?_ " she turned her look to the ground. " _At least May didn`t mention what I said about Ash two days ago. Heck, I acted so stupidly back there! As I think about it now, I almost made myself an enemy. And what I`m going to say to him? That I`m secretly in love with him and I`m extremely jealous of his friend? It sounds stupid_ "

"Here is your order, bon appetite!" a waitress happily announced as she brought their meals. Ash ordered a Lasagne with Coke, while Serena chose Spaghetti Bolognese with mineral water. To girl`s relief, a topic was abandoned when they started to eat. But she knew that keeping all of this in herself wasn`t the best choice anymore. It was the time to confess.

When their plates were empty, the waitress came back and took them to the kitchen. Ash turned his gaze at Serena once again.

"So, can you answer to my earlier question now?" he asked with a worried expression.

Serena sighed. " _Well, now or never_ " she thought.

"Ash, I held this in myself for over a year. I don`t think I`m ready to say this to you, but I can`t take it anymore" she closed her eyes. "Ash Ketchum, I`m in…"

"ASH! MAY IS IN DANGER!" someone shouted from their left side. When both of teens turned their heads to the source of the yell, they saw Drew, who was barely breathing from tiredness.

* * *

Drew was running through the street. On the end of it was Norman`s gym. He pried to God that it wasn`t too late.

When he was running near the restaurant, he noticed a familiar person in the window. When he looked closer, he recognized Ash sitting with a girl that Drew hasn`t seen before. He knew that Ash is a powerful trainer, and now his help would be appreciated. It didn`t matter that May liked him more. Her security was a priority now. Without thinking he entered the restaurant and with the rest of his energy he turned the raven-haired boy`s attention to him.

"ASH! MAY IS IN DANGER!"

"What are you talking about, Drew?" Ash asked, slyly surprised.

"Haven`t you heard what I said? We must find May immediately! She is in big danger, I`ll explain it later!" he reached for Ash`s hand and pulled him out of the table. Both of them exited the restaurant and now ran to the gym. Ash was still shocked, but when he saw a desperation in Drew`s eyes he understood that he wasn`t joking.

"So, what`s the matter?" Ash asked, still surprised.

"I met a strange man who offered me to help him with his plan. He said something about catching a champion and promised me, that I can take May after all of this if I want" Drew sighed. "Of course I disagreed, and after this the man knocked me out. So, I think that they are trying to chase you, and they will try to force May to help them. So, we must rescue her immediately. Understood?"

Ash could only nod at the moment. A thought about May being in real danger bewildered him a lot.

When they were about to open the main door, they heard a loud explosion. Above them was a helicopter with a ladder lowered to the roof of the building. They couldn`t believe what they saw. Now in the giant gym was a hole of the size of one hundred meters.

"Leave me alone!" a quiet yell could be heard from the top of the building. Two boys noticed that there were three man in black suits that were climbing up the ladder. One of them held now unconscious girl on his shoulder. Soon they disappeared in the interior of the vehicle ant it started to fly away.

Drew was thrilled. Was it real? Did they really kidnap May? How could he allow them to do this? He turned to his left. There he saw Ash, but boy wasn`t his normal self. He wasn`t shocked anymore; his expression changed drastically – now he was furious.

His eyes were filled with anger. He clenched his fists and reached to his belt. He unclipped the Pokeball and threw it in the air. A giant orange dragon appeared in front of the boys.

"Charizard, chase this helicopter, NOW!" he shouted at his loyal Pokemon. Charizard was surprised, because he had never seen his trainer in this state. But he nodded and lowered his body, so Ash could have placed himself on Charizard`s back. Soon both of them disappeared from Drew`s view.

The green-haired boy was exhausted. He ran that far to see that some criminals grasped the girl in which he fell in love? " _I`m so weak_ " he thought. " _I had an opportunity to prevent this and I failed. I`m not worthy enough to even think about being with May._ "

Soon, he slumped on the floor and lost his consciousness.

* * *

"Sir, we have our target with us!" a man reported to someone. The person to who he spoke was standing in the main chamber. The silver-haired man looked at the three agents behind him and when he noticed who did they bring, he smiled.

"Good job" Syer said. "Leave her on a couch and go to the pilots. Inform them that they have to increase our speed. We must be in our base in four hours. After that, you`re free" he walked to the table, on which was a cup. He took a sip and looked at the girl who was lying in front of him, still unconscious.

"This plan is going better than I expected" he said to himself. "Now, we must hide her somewhere and pull out of her everything about Ketchum. Then we`ll set a trap for him and my promotion will be the truth."

After that he sat in his armchair, totally not aware of the boy on his Charizard, who was chasing the big vehicle.

* * *

Ash was enraged. He forgot about everything else, on his mind was only one thought: he had to rescue May.

"They will regret this, I promise" he hissed under his breath. Charizard felt that his trainer was radiating with anger, but he totally understood him. If someone did that to Charla, his mate, who was now far away, he would destroy everyone and everything on this helicopter.

But the orange lizard didn`t expect the next words of his trainer.

"Once we will rescue May, I allow you to destroy everything that you will find in their base. No mercy for anyone" Ash told calmly. Charizard turned his head to his trainer with big eyes. Ash wasn`t himself now, and it was visible. But the Pokemon could do nothing and he only increased his speed.

" _I`m coming May, everything will be fine_ " he thought as he flew above the ocean.


	15. Chapter 15

"Boss, I have the girl that we were talking about" Syer announced as he walked through the main door of a room. It belonged to Giovanni, who was standing in front of a window and looked at the ocean. It had a calming effect on Team Rocket`s leader. He turned to his loyal employee with a frown on his face. Some other agents failed him recently, so some good news from Syer were very nice to hear.

"Good, weren`t you tracked by anyone on your way back there?" Giovanni asked. "It would complicate our situation if anyone knew about this place. Alpha Base is very important and I want it to stay hidden from everyone, except of Team Rocket, of course."

"I`m sure that we were flying alone, master" Syer bowed. "What should I do now?"

"Bring her to our special capsule, we`ll put her in sleep for some time, after that we`ll pull all of the information out of her" Giovanni spoke after few seconds of silence. Everything was going better than he expected.

"Team Rocket will return to its former glory soon" Giovanni said quietly. He left the room and turned to his private chamber to pack his belongings. Syer followed him, slightly surprised by his leader`s actions.

"Boss, are you leaving somewhere?" the young spy asked with disappointment in his voice.

"I have to prepare the rest of our agents in Kanto. We must be ready at any moment, especially now" Giovanni took his baggage and approached the door. "I suppose you`ll be able to guard this place when I`ll leave?"

"Of course, Master" Syer said. Deep in his heart he was proud that Giovanni trusted him that much.

The young man couldn`t have known about what was going to happen soon.

* * *

A trainer on his orange dragon quickly landed on the island where the helicopter was heading. It took a while for Ash to make sure that there weren`t any guards on the beach.

"Ok Charizard, I`ll return you for now, but better be ready for action!" Ash smiled at his Pokemon, which gave him a thumb up and disappeared in red beam. Almost instantly Ash reached for another ball and released Greninja. They started to run through the forest. After few minutes Ash noticed a long, grey wall between the trees. He gestured to his Pokemon to stop. Both of them started to observe the place and soon they noticed four Team Rocket members. Ash turned to Greninja.

"I need you to take them down as fast as possible" he whispered. "Start with those two" he pointed to the main door, where two agents were talking and laughing. "If you stun them, I`ll be able to sneak inside the base. When you`ll defeat the last one of them, come to me, I`ll be waiting in..." Ash looked to his left, but there wasn`t anyone anymore. He turned his eyes in the base`s direction and frozed. Fifty meters away five people were lying on the ground, near them Greninja was cleaning his hands from the dust.

" _I didn`t notice another one? Well, that`s not important, let`s heat this place up_ " Ash thought as he released his Charizard.

* * *

"BUTCH! DID YOU PUT HER IN A CAPSULE I SAID YOU ABOUT?" a scream could be heard somewhere in Alpha Base. It was Syer who stood on the one side of the corridor. His friend, who was walking in his direction, was an agent too. He worked in Team Rocket for seven years now, so Syer considered him as a mentor in some cases.

"Of course I did. And you don`t have to scream that loud" Butch sighed. " Ugh! Tell me, why Giovanni chose you to give me orders? It isn`t right!"

"Don`t cry, let`s go to check if everything`s alright with our 'special project'. It would be very bad if..." Syer was about to leave, but suddenly Butch grabbed his arm and pulled him to the wall.

"Are you stupid?! What are you…"

"Shut up and listen" Butch covered Syer`s mouth with his hand and both of them started to listen.

 **BOOM!**

"What was that?!" Syer asked, shocked.

"Wade, what`s going on in there?!" Butch shouted at his phone.

"We are under attack right now!" someone shouted from the other side of the building.

"Who is it?!" Syer yelled to the phone, scared.

"IT`S HIM! IT`S THE KALOS CHAMPION! UGHH…" the call ended after those words. Syer cursed under his breath. Was he that blind? How did he not notice that Ketchum was chasing them?

"Giovanni won`t be happy about this…" Syer said quietly.

"You don`t say?" Butch asked with an angry voice. "We won`t stand a chance against an enraged league champion, you realize that, do you?"

Syer cursed silently. He was aware of it. But Boss would have killed him if he escaped from the base without a fight. " _What am I going to do now?!_ " he thought.

While the young spy was having a mental battle, Butch grabbed his hand and started to run towards the secret exit that leaded to the ocean. The silver-haired teen tried to protest, but he knew that Butch was doing the right thing.

" _I`ll take my revenge, Ash Ketchum. You will regret this day very soon…_ " was the last Syer`s thought before he jumped on the boat and swam away from the island.

* * *

"WHERE IS SHE?!" Ash grabbed still conscious man from the floor and punched him very hard in the stomach. The man yelled in pain and was barely breathing, but he didn`t say anything.

"I`ll ask you for the last time. WHERE IS THE GIRL?!" Ash punched him again.

"She`s in the capsule in one of the rooms on the second floor, please don`t kill me! I don`t know anything else! Please…" a scientist begged. Ash kicked him in the face and smashed him into the ground. While the boy was "having conversation" with the man, Charizard collected the unconscious agents from the base and made a big heap out of them outside of the building. Greninja did the same and soon all of the people from this island were lying in the same place.

"Charizard, put this one with the others and wait for our return" Ash ordered as he and Greninja headed to the stairs.

The second floor of the building was filled with various plants. Ash couldn`t recognize any of them. " _They probably done some kind of experiments on them_ " he thought.

When the trainer and his Pokemon made a first step on this floor, plants attacked them, and without Greninja`s Water Shurikens it could have ended bad. When the battle was over, Ash noticed that there were two pairs of door only. He approached one of them and quickly opened it.

This room wasn`t big and the only thing that was there, was a pedestal with a Pokeball on it. On the wall were some maps and statistics. Ash`s mind told him that there wasn`t time for that, but his curiosity won. He grabbed the Pokeball and looked at it. On the bottom part of it was a sentence. It was written in unreadable language, so the trainer didn`t know what was inside the ball. Also, this ball was secured with a padlock, which was a solid one. Ash tried to open it, but with no luck, so he clipped the mysterious ball on his belt and left in the next room`s direction.

This one had a weird painting on the door, which looked like a Kyogre. Ash pushed the handle and he noticed that this room had the same décor as the former. The only difference between them was about the pedestal. On this one a silver key was lying. The boy took it and left the room. He was angry, because there were only two rooms, and May wasn`t in any of them. He threw his fist in a wall to give a vent to his anger. Suddenly, something clicked inside the wall and a trapdoor on the middle section of the corridor opened. Ash was surprised, but without thinking he dashed to the hole in the floor. He jumped in and released a yellow creature from a Pokeball. Pikachu appeared on the ground, very bewildered. He shot Thunderbolt on his trainer, who dodged it, to mouse`s disappointment.

"Pikachu, I know that you didn`t like it, but it was necessary. I`ll never put you in your Pokeball again, I promise. Now, can you lighten up this room a bit?" Ash asked, while hiding behind something big.

Pikachu mumbled something that couldn`t be translated into something nice and released some sparkles from his cheeks. Ash looked around and realized that he was hiding behind a strange capsule made of iron. He stood up and put his hands on a weird panel, which was on the capsule. Something hissed and the container opened, revealing an unconscious girl with brown, long hair. She had some bruises on her body, but it looked like everything else was ok. But her unconsciousness made Ash even more worried.

"May…" Ash whispered. He took her carefully in his hands. His expression changed to a sad one. Even Pikachu calmed down and looked at the brunette, worried. The trainer escaped from the hole with a girl in his arms and walked back to Charizard. His lizard-like Pokemon gazed at him with a look, which said "Can I finally blow this all up?" But Ash turned back to him and sighed.

"We won`t do it. They had enough" he gestured to a place, where dozens of man were lying. Charizard growled, but agreed with his trainer. Ash nodded to orange creature, which gently lowered his back. The boy placed himself on Charizard and gave him a signal. Lizard-like took off and soon they were flying back in Petalburg City`s direction.

Through all the way back Ash looked at his friend. He wanted her to wake up, so he could have hugged her and tell her that everything was going to be alright. But he knew that now he could only wait. He sighed once more and looked at the stars beneath him.

" _If only she could see them now_ " he thought, unaware that May opened her eyes a few moments ago. He didn`t notice her glistening eyes, which were looking at him for a minute, until a girl fell asleep again. And he didn`t know that he really made her feel secure.


	16. Chapter 16

Some hours had passed before green-haired coordinator has recovered from his sleep. Drew opened his eyes and started to feel confused. Well, it was understandable, anyone would be surprised if he woke up in unknown place, lying on a sofa while covered with a blanket. He tried to get up but muscles in his body protested, making him feel great pain. He hissed and turned his head to his left side. His eyes opened widely when he spotted a person sitting on a chair near him. Maybe it wasn`t the wisest choice, but Drew started to do a thing that every man did when he met a female: he began to examine her, while pretending to be still asleep.

This girl had a short hair in a color of honey, covered by a pink hat. She was dressed in pink skirt and red, long vest. She even had a blue ribbon tied to one of the buttons in her outfit. She was beautiful, her blue eyes matched a color of sky and her figure could bring her attention of some males. She appeared to be deep in thought, she had an uneasy expression on her face through all the time Drew was watching her. To him, she could be mistaken with an angel. But he watched her a bit too long; suddenly she looked at a sofa and her eyes met with his. She smiled slyly and moved her chair to be closer to a coordinator.

"Are you ok? When I found you, you weren`t in best condition" she asked, trying to cover her uneasiness towards an unknown boy

"Yeah, I think so" Drew tried to get up once more; this time his body obeyed him and he was able to look at the room. It was a living room (which he guessed after noticing a TV and big table). "Umm… Can you tell me where am I exactly?"

"You`re in Petalburg City`s Gym, you know, home of the Elite Four member, Norman" Serena giggled. "You passed out on the road in front of the building, so we brought you inside. There`s a giant hole in the roof after an explosion, so I covered you with this just in case if it was too cold for you" she pointed on a blue blanket. "But where`s my manners? I`m Serena" she held out her hand. Drew shook it, but was still slightly surprised.

"Nice to meet you, I`m…"

"You`re Drew, famous coordinator from Hoenn" Serena interrupted. "I have heard about you. If I remember correctly, you are a double finalist in Grand Festivals, right?"

"That`s correct" the boy nodded. "And you had participated in Master Class in Kalos, right? Your performance against Aria was amazing! It is sad that you didn`t win with her".

"Someday I will beat her" Serena blushed a bit after hearing those compliments. "Now, I have some questions to ask you. First, what happened a while ago? What was with this helicopter? And why Ash did fly away on Charizard in unknown direction?"

"Ugh" Drew mumbled. "This is a long story. Today in the morning I met a strange guy, who offered me to cooperate with him… in kidnaping Ash" Drew stopped for a while; he knew that Serena was Ash`s friend and he didn`t want to tell her that the raven-haired boy was in any danger, but it looked like it was necessary. "I rejected his offer, so he took me down. I can remember that his offer had something to do with May" he sighed; Serena opened her mouth in fear. "I woke up a few hours later and when I returned to my senses, I started to look for her. One woman told me about where the gym is, and while I was running in its direction, I spotted Ash and you in this restaurant. I`m sorry that I interrupted your date, or something" he smiled weakly, while Serena`s face became red. "And with that helicopter… well, it took May somewhere."

"They kidnapped May?!" Serena shouted. "And you are so calm about this?! I…"

"Easy, Ash followed them and I think that May is with him right now" Drew said it with a smile. "You know, sometimes he can act stupidly and be really annoying, but when it comes to his friends, he would rather die than let something bad happen to them."

"What a relief" Serena was able to calm down. "How long do you know him by the way?"

"If I remember correctly. It was four years ago when we first met" Drew started. "He was travelling with May, her brother Max and a guy named Brock. I was teasing May about her coordinating skills. After that we have seen each other several times. We even had a battle too!"

"Who won?" Serena asked curiously.

"I won" Drew couldn`t hide a smile.

"Oh."

"So, coming back to the topic, every time I met them, I used to spend my time only with May, so I wasn`t able to befriend him or something, but I must admit, he had determination and some skills, so I had a respect for him."

"You said that you were spending time with May. You were only friends, or…" Serena raised her eyebrow.

"Umm... You know, it isn`t easy to talk about this" Drew scratched back of his head in embarrassment.

"Oh, I`m really sorry! I didn`t want to..." Serena panicked.

"It`s ok, I`ve been holding all of this in myself for a long time, and if Ash trusts you, it means that I can trust you too" Drew smiled and looked in Serena`s eyes. "When we first met, I`ve seen her as a stupid girl who had an overgrown ego. But a few months later it all changed. I started to feel something special towards May. My behavior changed drastically, I became more caring and, what`s even more important, happy. Through our journeys in Hoenn and Kanto we had some great moments, when our friendship evolved. I got to know the real side of her, I got to know that she doesn`t have a nice appearance only, but she is also an amazing person."

" _Sounds familiar, huh_?" Serena thought.

"After the Grand Festival in Hoenn May went to Kanto to travel with Ash again. To be honest, it did hurt me, but I decided to follow her. I participated in Kanto`s Grand Festival and I was able to learn even more about her. I noticed that she started to feel more comfortable with me, and for some time I was hoping that she felt the same way about me. We used to travel together in Johto, but I messed everything up" he saddened a little."I started to act stupidly, I treated her very badly and I said a few words too much. And then, she left me, but I fully understand her. I tried to excuse her, but it was too late" he sighed. "It was hard for me, but I didn`t want it to end like that. At some point we lost a contact and finally I met her a few days ago on this contest in Lumiose. When it ended, I tried to ask her out, but a blonde-haired girl interrupted us. And what was more surprising, Ash arrived after a minute."

"So, you were there when they met again?" Serena asked.

"Yes, and now I`m glad that I was there. When I saw the look in her eyes, everything became clear for me. I finally understood that Ash has a special place in her heart from the beginning. A place that I couldn`t reach, no matter how hard I would try" Drew smiled weakly. "So, I decided to give up on her. She meant too much for me. I couldn`t try to separate her from Ash and see her dying inside. You know, this man in the morning promised me that I will be able to keep May for myself after all of this. But I didn`t want to get her in that way. I only wanted her to be happy, no matter who will make her feel that way. So, when I realized that something terrible was going to happen to her, I decided to rescue her. But I wasn`t able to do much with my injured ankle he gestured on his swollen leg, ?So I took Ash with me. Because I was sure that even if I couldn`t do it, with his determination he would be able to do anything"Drew stopped talking and looked at Serena.

The girl listened carefully to all of the words that had left his mouth and when he ended, she started to gaze at the floor in silence.

" _It`s funny that our problems are that similar_ " she thought. " _Thanks to Drew I see now that I have been very selfish. I didn`t care about Ash`s feelings. When May arrived in my life, I started to see an enemy in her. It was a mistake, and even when everything between them was visible I was too blind to see it. I love Ash, but he just can`t be mine_."

"Serena, is everything okay?" Drew broke the silence after a while.

"Yeah, thanks to your story I realized some things" Serena raised her head and smiled. "You were right, we can`t force people we love to feel the same towards us" she stood up. "Never mind, do you want some tea?"

"Sure, thanks" Drew smiled.

"Ok, I will be back in five minutes!" she said happily and walked towards the kitchen, but after two seconds she took a step back and looked in Drew`s direction.

"You`re a great man, Drew. I`m sure that one day you will find a girl that will like you in the same way" she winked at him and disappeared behind a wall.

* * *

It was midnight when Ash decided to give his giant Pokemon a break. They landed on a beach somewhere in Hoenn. Ash started to prepare a fireplace, while Pikachu and Flareon ran to the forest to collect some berries to eat.

"Charizard, you can take a nap if you want" Ash said to his lizard-like friend, but Pokemon shook his head and growled something.

"You want to protect us?" Ash was surprised, but also very proud of his friend. Charizard nodded and settled himself in sand near the campsite.

"Thank you buddy, I appreciate it" Ash said, while hugging his friend. Charizard wasn`t very comfortable about this, but he hugged his trainer back. Then Ash returned to still sleeping girl and covered her with his jacket. The trainer sat down near her and started to look at her. He was still worried, but after seeing that she was sleeping so calmly he decided to think about something else.

" _I wonder what is she dreaming about_ " he thought. " _Well, it doesn`t matter, I will ask her tomorrow. Now let`s look at this thing I`ve found in the base._ "

He pulled out locked Pokeball and a key. Curious about what was inside it, he put a key in a padlock. Something clicked inside and soon he had an unlocked Pokeball in his hand. Without thinking he threw it in the air. After a few seconds he gasped. On the ground appeared a Pokemon that Ash wouldn`t consider to be in ball, especially in one from Team Rocket`s base.

This Pokemon was small and had two antennae sticking out of its head. It also had some kind of crystal on its stomach and big, green eyes. After a while it opened its eyes and looked around. When little creature noticed Ash, it took some steps back, but after a while it stopped and started to gaze at human. After a minute of silence a quiet voice could be heard.

"Mana?"


	17. Chapter 17

"Mana?"

A small creature looked above him and noticed an unknown man. He took another step back and accidentally fell on sand. His eyes were starting to water, but before Manaphy could burst in tears, a yellow rodent jumped out of the bush. When he noticed Manaphy, he made its way to him.

"Pika pika, chu ka Pi!"

"Mana?"the blue Pokemon asked, still very uneasy with those strangers.

"Pi chu pipi kachu chu! Pikapi ka chu Chuchupi!" Pikachu tried to convince Hoenn legendary to believe him. He was still suspicious, but despite this he turned his eyes to the sixteen years old trainer.

It took him few seconds to force himself to look at the boy, but as fast as he did look in his eyes, he began to calm down.

"Mana?"

"Manaphy, we really don`t want to do anything bad to you, I`m Ash, don`t you remember me?"

The blue Pokemon took a step forward, but he didn`t stop looking at Ash. The boy wasn`t feeling comfortable, but after a while Manaphy made a happy squeak and jumped into his arms.

"Mana mana! Phy!" the small Pokemon squealed in joy. But he changed his attitude immediately when he realized that someone was missing. "Mama?"

"Don`t worry, she`s with us, but now she is sleeping, she had a tough day and you know how murderous girls can be when you wake them up" he laughed. Manaphy smiled again at this information and cuddled in Ash`s chest even more.

"By the way, why have you been in this ball for all of the time, Manaphy?" Ash asked when they both calmed down a bit."You know, it isn`t a normal thing to find the Prince of the Sea in hands of an evil organization like Team Rocket."

"Mana mana, manaphy mana mana phy mana!" Manaphy started to tell his story for Ash, but after this one sentence Ash sweatdropped and started to rub his finger under his nose – he did that only in some nervous situations, so you could say how was he feeling now.

"Well, everything`s great, but there`s one small problem: I can`t understand what you`re saying. Pikachu, can you translate it for me?" the raven-haired trainer turned his head to his loyal Pokemon, hoping that he would help. Pikachu tried to gesticulate and translate those words, but with no luck. Manaphy wasn`t blind and he knew what he should do: he closed his eyes and placed one of his antennas on Ash`s heart. The second one touched Pikachu`s head. There was a flash of light and after this you could still see a boy with two Pokemon. But something wasn`t right…

"WHAT HAPPENNED?!" Ash shouted in surprise. He raised his hands and looked at them – they were covered with yellow fur and were very, very short. He looked up and spotted a boy, who was in the same kind of shock as he.

"What is going on here?!" asked Pikachu in Ash`s body.

"Heart Swap. It was the only way for you to understand me, daddy" Manaphy giggled. Ash/Pikachu scratched his head with his little paw.

"You know, it`s very strange to be a Pokemon, but I was a Pikachu a few years ago for one day, so I`ll manage. And can you not call me daddy?" he laughed nervously. "It`s just… I don`t know how to name that feeling…"

"Sorry, but you must get used to it" Manaphy giggled once more. "You did so much for me in the past, and what is more important, you cared so much about mummy, so I have all rights to consider you as my dad, am I right?"

"Yeah, I think so…" Ash/Pikachu shook his head. "But anyway, let`s continue our main topic: what happened? I thought that you were protecting Samiya?"

"Many things had changed since you and mummy left" Manaphy saddened. "I was staying in Samiya for about two years, then I decided to leave the temple. This bad pirate who was trying to kidnap me ended as Sharpedo`s lunch earlier, so I thought that everything that is underwater was save back there."

"Wow… Even Phantom did not deserve to end like that: Ash/Pikachu looked at the ground.

"It was his fault that he came back after few months. He arrived in a small boat and one of Sharpedos that were staying there with me decided to play a little with him. For a bad pirate it ended with many cuts. The other Sharpedos took a scent of blood and well…" Manaphy stopped for a while. "Believe me, it wasn`t the nicest scene to watch. But returning to our main subject: I migrated to Sinnoh and met many Pokemon in there. Then I travelled to Unova and Kanto, and it was Kanto where this bad group caught me."

"How did they do that?" Pikachu/Ash asked. In normal situation Ash would laugh, because hearing his body with Pikachu`s voice was ridiculous. But the situation was too serious, and it would be very immature to react like that.

"I was swimming near their base when unexpectedly they shoot a net at me. I dodged it, but from out of nowhere many agents of the bad group appeared. They paralyzed me with some electric harpoons and caught me in some kind of net" Manaphy shivered. "I can`t remember what happened next, but I know that it was painful. And then I saw you, that`s all."

"Damn you, Team Rocket" Ash/Pikachu whispered, then he turned to Manaphy. "Okay, that`s enough, now you should rest for a bit" he pointed in May`s direction. "I know that you are very excited to see her, but please, try to not wake her up."

"Okay, but what did exactly happen to her?" Manaphy looked at May with worry.

"To be honest, I found you accidentally when I was in Team Rocket`s base in Hoenn. Some agents kidnapped May from her house and I was chasing them. I only know that they wanted to gain some information about me" Ash/Pikachu sighed. "I feel bad for involving her into this."

"It`s not your fault, Pikapi" Pikachu/Ash said with concern. "She owes you her life now. God knows what would they do to her if you didn`t arrive there in time!"

"Yeah, you`re probably right" Ash/Pikachu turned to his Pokemon. "By the way, it`s really weird to see me talking with your voice, Pikachu. Manaphy, can you switch us back?"

"Of course, daddy" Manaphy smiled and used Heart Swap one more time. After few seconds both trainer and Pokemon were back to normal.

"Gaaahhh, it`s good to be in my own body again" Ash whispered and turned to May – Oh no, she`s shivering! And we don`t have any blanket to cover her with…" without thinking he took off a hoodie, which he had under his jacket (with which May was already covered) and covered still sleeping girl with it. "It`s not enough…"

He stood in silence for about a minute, then he unexpectedly ran to Charizard and whispered something in his ear. Lizard-like Pokemon nodded and Ash jumped on his back. Before they took off, the raven-haired trainer looked back at Pikachu and Manaphy.

"Please take care of her for a bit, I`ll be back soon!" and with those words he flied away from them.

"(What is he planning, Pikachu?)" Manaphy asked, still looking at the sky, where Kalos Champion disappeared few seconds ago.

"(Don`t ask me, even I don`t know what is in his head)" Pikachu sighed and sat on a cold sand.

* * *

Both of them quickly fell asleep, cuddled together with May, so they didn`t notice that Charizard landed near them after an hour. Trying to be as quiet as he only could, the raven-haired trainer jumped on sand and pulled something from one of the bags, that he brought with him. He pulled out a blanket and he covered May and two Pokemon with it. After that, satisfied, he sat near them and drifted into sleep.

* * *

"Huh? W.. where am I?" May woke up in a stronghold. The same that she was in through previous nights. Every detail was the same, nothing seemed to change for a bit.

She slowly got up from the floor and looked at the corridor. There were the same pairs of doors, nothing less and nothing more. The coordinator made her way in there, and she stopped walking in front of the door that she visited last time. She was looking at them, but nothing happened. Until she turned around…

"GAH!" May yelled as she spotted someone coming in her direction. The brunette started running away, but very quickly she reached a wall. The frightened girl curled up in the corner of the corridor and waited for mysterious person to approach her.

"Please don`t do anything to me… Please…" May started to cry. She was powerless now, and she felt that it was going to be her end. But when nothing happened, she raised her head and spotted a girl standing in front of her, with her hands resting on her hips. After few seconds she pulled out her hand and offered it for May.

"Why would I want to hurt you, silly? Come on, I`ll help you to stand up" a mysterious girl said with a giggle. May was very careful, but she took girl`s hand and soon she could stand in front of her.

"Serena…? What are you doing here?" May took a step back, slightly surprised. Serena was the last person that she would consider to offer her anything, especially after this situation with Ash.

"I could ask you about the same thing" Serena shrugged. "I was sleeping in bed, when from out of nowhere I was teleported in this strange place. By the way, no one has cleaned it since… I don`t know, thousand years?" she asked, while pointing on spider`s web on the wall.

"But... why you were teleported in THIS place?" May still tried to understand the situation.

"I don`t know, but while we are here anyway, I want to have a talk with you" Serena gestured her to go outside the corridor and they both sat on grass. May had a bad feeling about this conversation, but she knew that there was no escape. There was a minute of silence before Serena sighed and started talking.

"I wanted to inform you, that I was on a date with Ash yesterday" the honey-blonde girl started, while May became silent. "Well, that wasn`t a real date, never mind. I don`t know If you knew about it or not, but that`s not the point. He invited me there only to ask about my… strange moments in the last few days. So, don`t feel defeated, it really wasn`t a real date after all."

"Umm… okay, but why are you saying this to me?" May frowned. Of course, it was great to hear that Ash didn`t mean to take Serena on a real date, but the girl from Kalos was hiding something more.

"Just listen. In the middle of our meeting your green-haired friend, Drew took Ash to rescue you from Team Rocket…"

"Yeah, I can remember about what happenned" May said with an annoyance in her voice. "But it`s nice to hear that Drew did something for me"

"Ash started to chase them. Right now he should be in the middle of rescuing you from their hands" Serena looked at the ground. "I had a talk with Drew, and during it I realized something" she turned to the brunette. "May, you`re free to be with him."

"With who?" May was shocked, she didn`t know if she was only dreaming, or it was a reality.

"With Ash of course. May, it`s visible that he cares more about you than about me" the honey-haired girl smiled sadly. "And don`t say anything. Just promise me that you will treat him good."

"I… I promise, Serena" May could barely speak. She was sure that it was only her mind`s creation and it wasn`t happening. But when Serena put her hand on May`s shoulder, the brunette started to believe in all of this.

"In a few minutes you`re probably going to wake up for a short period of time. I promise you, that you`re in Ash`s hands right now. He is very predictable and he puts his friends above himself" Serena nodded and stood up, on her face appeared a sad smile. "When you will be back in Petalburg City, I`ll probably won`t be there, so… I want you to know, that you`re a lucky girl, May. And I`m sorry for all problems that I made during this short journey of ours" she started to walk away. "Take care, bye."

"Serena, wait!" May yelled and tried to run to the blonde, but Serena disappeared.

May didn`t have much time to think about it all, because she woke up immediately. She felt tired, but she was able to open her eyes. And there he was: her ranger, covered with dust and visibly jiggered, with a serious tone on his face. May`s eyes started to water when she realized, that it all wasn`t just a dream.

" _Well… she was right about one thing_ " May thought. " _He is predictable._ "


	18. Chapter 18

A delicate sea breeze, which was floating above a beach, woke up a girl with brown hair. After feeling light wind on her face she slowly opened her eyelids to see sky, which color was matching her eyes color. When she fully regained her consciousness, she turned her head on a side, only to see Pokemon cuddled up to her. May`s vision was still blurry, so she didn`t notice that it was Manaphy, a Pokemon, that she was very close to. Still thinking that it`s probably Pikachu, the brunette gently placed him on a blanket that was covering her a while ago. After that she got up, or, at least, tried to do it. She felt bruised, but despite this, she was ok.

"It could be worse. If Ash didn`t find me in time…" she said to herself. "Wait… Ash! Where is he?!"

May started to look around her in fear. An idea of Ash not being somewhere around made her thrilled. The girl used all of her strength to get up and walk a bit. She even tried to run around the beach, but it ended with giant pain in both of her legs, which caused her to fall down. She tried to pull up herself one more time, but with no luck. All she could do was gazing at sand and crying out of hopelessness.

"I… I`m so weak!" she said through sobs. "What if something happened to him?! What if he is in danger right now? What can I do when I can`t even stand up?!"

May sat on sand and wiped off tears from her face. She calmed down a bit, but she was still worried about Ash. From out of nowhere memories of last night appeared in her head. She thought about the stronghold, about Serena and about her words. Was it only a dream, or something in all of this was real? Maybe it was only her imagination? Or maybe it was visualization of her hopes?

Suddenly she heard something from a near forest. She moved back and started to listen. Rustling of leaves was closer and closer and the brunette was more scared with every minute. If it was any wild Pokemon, she would be in very bad situation.

But luckily for the brunette, a small, yellow mouse jumped out of bushes. It landed in May`s arms and before surprised girl could say anything, a boy ran to her quickly with some kind of bag on his shoulder.

"May! I`m so happy to finally see you conscious!" Ash put his bag on the ground and pulled something from it. He gave some of those things for May and then he unclipped his Pokeballs to let Greninja and Charizard out. Then he gave them the same items. May looked at her hand and noticed that Ash brought her some berries. Before she could say anything again, Ash was sitting next to her.

"I know that it isn`t very sophisticated breakfast, but it`s better than nothing, right?" he giggled, but it was obvious that he forced it, very quickly his smile disappeared. "How do you feel May? I didn`t have any time to check your body for any cuts or wounds, so you must do it by yourself. I have some bandages in my backpack if you want, I can go to take them…" before he could continue, May grabbed his arm with her free hand, which got him out of attention.

"I`m ok, I just have some bruises, nothing more" she said with a slight smile. "And I think that those berries will be enough, don`t worry."

"It`s great to finally hear some good news" Ash turned his gaze into the sky. "When I was in the morning in city that is near this beach, I`ve heard about some Kyogre incident. And I had this dream about…"

A talk was interrupted by a small, blue creature that jumped out of blue and was now hugging to May, who was even more confused right now.

"Mama, mama!" Manaphy was yelling in happiness.

"Wha... Manaphy? It`s really you!" May hugged her "baby" more and couldn`t stop tears of happiness.

"Oh, I forgot about Manaphy" Ash sweatdropped. "I thought that you noticed him earlier, he was sleeping next to you all night long."

"I didn`t… but how? How did you find Manaphy, Ash?" May was speechless.

"When I was looking for you… you know, in Team Rocket`s base, I found a Pokeball with him. Don`t ask me what was he doing there, because I don`t know. But I have some suspicions."

"You said something about a dream, right?" May asked, while trying to calm down a bit too much happy Manaphy. "What was it about?"

Ash put his hands behind his head and slowly fell down on sand. After a minute of silence he sighed and started talking.

"Well…"

* * *

" **The Chosen One! Is that you?"** a low voice was audible in a space where Ash was levitating. Everything around him was dark, and the only thing that he could see was a small source of light that was slowly approaching the raven-haired trainer.

"Yeah, I think it`s me…" Ash stammered a bit.

" **So I finally found** _**you"**_ there was a moment of silence. " _ **But where`s my manners? You probably don`t know who I am"**_ a source of this voice was now very close. Big flash covered everything and after a while in front of Ash was floating a Kyogre – a water legendary from Hoenn.

"Kyogre?! Wow, I wouldn`t expect you to be in my dream" Ash was seriously shocked. He met many legendaries in his short life, but every next meeting with any was a great experience for him.

" **To be honest, I wouldn't consider it too. But in those times, I think everything is possible"** although it was hard to notice, Kyogre frowned. " _ **But let`s not change the main topic. I need help and you`re probably the only person who can help me."**_

"Umm… Okay, but what kind of help are you expecting from me?" Ash asked, now very interested in what the legendary was saying.

 **" _You see… I know you. I know about your achievements and your meetings with other legendaries. By the way, they are very thankful for what you did for them. Especially that Latias, which you had met in Alto Mare a while ago, she can`t wait to meet you again"_** _Kyogre laughed. "_ _ **You probably know Team Rocket? Yeah, I think so. Those people are trying to take a control over me and then they want me to destroy a region, which name was… well, I can`t remember right now. I know that at the beginning of its name was a letter 'K'."**_

"Kanto?" the boy had a bad feeling about this all.

 **" _No, they were talking about something different…"_**

"Kalos?"

" **Yes, I think that this is the correct answer"** Kyogre said. " _ **Anyway, I also know that you found Manaphy one day ago. So, you did a half of your job already. They wanted to force Manaphy to command me to destroy this "Kalos" region. Now they can`t do anything, but you must be careful. They have their agents everywhere."**_

"Ok, and what about you? I heard that something happened on the north of Hoenn" Ash asked.

" **And here we are getting to the main issue"** Kyogre sighed. " _ **Today in the morning I was attacked by Team Rocket and they were able to catch me. They used the same kind of net as they used on Manaphy earlier. I`m powerless right now, and I wanted to ask you for a favor. Can you do something to set me free? I don`t know where am I, but I`m sure that you will find me. I`m in a small cave, I suppose it is located about 20 kilometers from your current position. If you will have any problem, just ask Manaphy for help, he can detect me wherever I am."**_

"Okay, I will do my best" Ash assured. "Oh, and I have a question."

" **So feel free to ask"** Kyogre said quietly.

"You see, my friend was kidnaped by Team Rocket, and, to be honest, I don`t know what was a purpose of it. Maybe you heard something while you`re staying where you staying?"

" **Ha ha ha** **!"** Kyogre laughed. " **Isn`t that obvious? You are Ash Ketchum, The Chosen One! You have some amazing abilities, and with you in their hand they would do anything! They know that they won`t be able to control Manaphy by themselves, and they also heard about your adventure in Samiya. They caught Manaphy to give it to you later. Then, you would command it to control me and... you know what would happen next. But their leader knew that you won`t help them of your own accord. So, they kidnaped the brunette, because they knew that you will chase after them. And they were trying to set a trap for you, but they failed. I think that one of them must have been spying on you and your friends for some time, otherwise they wouldn`t know who was the closest for you."**

"Maybe…" Ash started to analyze his time in Kalos. Maybe someone really was watching them all the way?

" **I also know that you were traveling with another person, I suppose it was another female, huh?"** Kyogre asked. " **If I were you, I would protect her even more. If they weren`t able to catch one, they will try to find another for sure, and It wouldn`t be so good, right?"**

"Yeah, don`t worry, Serena will be safe" Ash raised his fist and smiled confidently.

" **Remember, I`m counting on you, The Chosen One!"** Kyogre raised his head and disappeared.

* * *

"So, we will return to Petalburg and catch up with Serena. After what happened to you I won`t allow them to do something like that again" Ash summed up. He didn`t see a sad expression that suddenly appeared on May`s face.

"Ash?" she asked quietly. "I… also had a dream."

"Yeah?" Ash turned his head to her, and that was the moment he noticed that something isn`t right.

"I had a dream where I was in a stronghold. I was there many times when I was asleep, but that`s not the point. I… met Serena in there" Ash`s eyes opened wider. "We had a talk and she said that she is going back to Kalos…

"What?!" Ash`s outburst scared everyone a bit. "Why? Did she say anything more?"

"I don`t know why" May lied. "But she said something... about your date…"

"Oh no" Ash facepalmed. "What have I done? We must go, can you stand up?"

"I might need some help, to be honest" May blushed from embarrassment. With Ash`s help she was able to get on Charizard`s back and they flew away to May`s hometown.

* * *

Serena wiped out some tears as she was heading to the port. She was in horrible condition, after what happened in the night.

"Calm down, you stupid" she said to herself. "It`s for his sake, he deserves to be happy."

When she was about to enter a platform, where a ship to Kalos was waiting, she heard some noises. She looked around her and noticed a few man covered with black jackets and some weird hats.

"Sorry, but you will come with us" one of them said and grabbed her arm.

"What?! What are you doing?! Let me go!" Serena started to scream. At the same time the raven-haired trainer made his way to the port.

"Serena!" Ash yelled and quickened his pace. But it wasn`t enough; Team Rocket members have already put Serena in a submarine.

"Ash!" Serena yelled one more time. Then the boat swam away.

May made her way to Ash after two minutes. She didn`t have to ask him what happened when she noticed his expression.

"Oh no..." she whispered.


	19. Chapter 19

"Ash?"

The raven-haired trainer was standing on a platform, where Serena stood a couple of minutes ago. He was so silent that May didn`t know if he was still breathing. He clenched his fists when he realized what happened. He didn`t hear his friend, who was silently talking to him.

"Ash, can you hear me?" the brunette said carefully, with tears in her eyes.

Sadly, Ash didn`t care about anything at the moment. The only thing he did was throwing his backpack on the ground and pulling out a Pokeball. A flash of light beamed from it and Tallonflame appeared in the air.

"Tallonflame, fly as fast as you can after a submarine that swam away in this direction" he pointed it with his finger. "When you will see that they stopped somewhere, try to remember this location and come back here, I`ll be waiting" Ash nodded to his Pokemon, but without his trademark smile, which confused the creature. But Tallonflame felt that there wasn`t time for any questions.

As soon as Tallonflame flew away, Ash turned back and started walking towards a videophone.

"Ash, please, say something!" May was desperate. She was worried about Serena as much as the trainer was, but Ash ignoring everything around him was very infuriating.

Ash chose a telephone number and waited for a response. After a few more attempts to bring Ash back to reality May gave up and sat on a bench nearby. After few seconds she noticed, that a familiar old man appeared on a screen.

"Oh, Ash, it`s good to see…" Oak made a pause here. "Did something happen, my boy?"

"Professor, please send me Sceptile and Snorlax as fast as you can, ok? No questions" Ash said without any emotions in his voice.

"Umm, ok, I will be back in two minutes" Oak disappeared from the screen, which became black again. Ash turned around and started heading in May`s direction. He sat next to her, and covered his face with cap. They were sitting in silence for about one minute.

"I… I totally messed things up" the trainer whispered with sadness. May nearly jumped in shock when he finally spoke, but she managed to still sit.

"Wh… what are you talking about" May asked.

"It`s my fault that Serena is now in danger!" Ash yelled and stood up. He made his way to the nearest wall and punched it with all his strength. What was surprising, he made a deep dent with his fist, while not breaking his hand. When he repeated this a few times, May started to really worry about him. She understood why he was that angry; losing one friend after another in just two days must have been depressing. When the boy growled with fury and punched already broken wall once more, she stood up and walked to Ash. She put her hand on his shoulder, the same way he did it at the fair. He turned his head to her, but it wasn`t visible that he calmed down, even a bit.

"It`s not your fault Ash, and don`t even dare to think like that!" she yelled him in his face. "We will rescue her, just calm down a bit and we can go!"

"The problem is that thanks to my 'quick' reaction I don`t know where did they swim away, so I can`t go anywhere until Tallonflame comes" he said. "And you`re not going anywhere with me this time, so please, give me a break."

Before the girl could react, a videophone rang. Professor Oak appeared on the screen again, with two Pokeballs in his hands.

"Here they are, I`m sending them right now" the old man informed. "You know, Sceptile just arrived on farm and you`re calling him back so quickly… I don`t know what is going on out there, but be careful. Your mother wouldn`t like to something happen to you" and with those words he hang up.

"What are you talking about, Ash Ketchum?!" May shouted behind him, while Ash was clipping two Pokeballs on his belt.

"Give me a minute, ok? I`ll be back soon" Ash said. He didn`t turn around to her and just simply walked away to the men`s bathroom. The way that he got rid of her made May really angry, so she stopped controlling herself when she rushed after him. Without thinking she started to punch the doors to the toilet, which in combination with furious shouts in Ash`s direction caught attention of a few passers, who were about to get to the port. She stopped everything when the doors have opened and the raven-haired trainer walked out of the toilet peacefully. May grabbed his hand and forced him to look straight in her eyes.

"Finally" she growled. "Now, can you please tell me what did you mean when you said that I`m not going with you?"

"Do I really have to explain this to you?" Ash sighed. "It`s simple, you will stay here and I will go… I don`t know where, but I must go there alone. It`s too risky to…"

"But Ash, you should know that it`s a trap!" May tried to convince him. "They already know that you probably will go there by yourself, and this time they will be ready, so you will need a backup! Please let me go with you, sometimes I can be useful!"

"I don`t want to take a risk!" Ash`s patience was running out.

"What risk?" May wasn`t going to give up. "Serena is also my friend, and I want to help you!"

"Risk of losing you again!" Ash shouted and turned back to look at the floor with anger. There was a silence between both of them. At first May thought that she overheard things, but Ash said what he said. Unfortunately, it had a backward effect on the brunette, who got mad at the boy.

"You care about me so badly, huh?" she laughed sadly. "And you want to leave me here alone because you care so much? Don`t you think that they can come back for me too? It would be better to..."

"That`s why I asked Drew to take care of you until I will come back" Ash said.

"You`re joking, right?" May`s eyes grew big. "Please tell me that it was only a stupid joke."

"Why would I joke? Drew is one of the best trainers that live in Hoenn, so…"

"Drew can`t defend himself correctly!" May yelled. "The only thing that he can take care of is his hair! And you`re talking about him being my 'guardian'."

"I can understand that 'maybe' something happened between two of you, really. and I would really want to know what..." Ash was tired of arguing. "But please, don`t make it harder for me."

"I will make it harder if you keep acting like that!" May stomped with her foot. "You really want to know what happened between us when we were in Johto? Fine!"

May turned her back to him and clenched her fists. She didn`t want to tell it to him in this kind of situation, but she had no choice now.

"I suppose that you remember the time, when I decided to follow Drew to Johto?" she asked. "I made this decision because I was stupid enough to think that he was more mannish than anyone who I met before him and that I will gain more experience when I travel with him. Many times through our journey in Hoenn I used to think about leaving the group for Drew, but I would always stay with you, Brock and Max. In Kanto he was even better for me. But I saw his real side in Johto. To be honest, we did travel together, but only for about three days, because I found out many things. He started to act the same way as he was at the beginning of my journey – arrogant, unkind and selfish. He didn`t care about my opinion, and every time I said something about you, he would change the topic to something about him. We had a big argument and I said everything to him. I started to count his every bad habit to him and I also said that If he won`t change, I`m going to travel at my own. And you know what he said to me?" May scoffed "He said that if I`m not comfortable with him, I can leave. Then he tried to say sorry to me, but I didn`t care anymore. But thanks to him I realized one thing: through all this time I tried to cover my feelings towards someone different."

Ash was silent through May`s monologue, but not because of being kind, but because of shock in which he was. He wouldn`t consider Drew to be so two-faced, especially for May. He felt sorry for the girl, who was now looking in his eyes with sadness. But the last sentence made him a little bit surprised.

"You see, before I met you, I wouldn`t think about being a trainer by myself. My dad insisted on me to get my starter Pokemon and become a trainer, but I only wanted to travel and see the world. But because of you, I started to love Pokemon. When I saw the love that you share with Pikachu, I started to understand everything. I quickly found out that you`re an interesting person and that was the main reason why I wanted to travel with you. I still remember when you taught me about catching a Pokemon and next day you threw a Pokeball at Treecko without a fight" she giggled. "When I decided to be a coordinator, I didn`t want to tell you, because I thought that you will be disappointed. But you were happy for me, and I realized that you would support me even if I chose something that you don`t like. It was very important for me, because it would give me courage in every contest. I also remember my third contest, where I acted like a dumb. I yelled at you when you offered to help me. And when I lost, you didn`t laugh at me, but you started to comfort me. It was unbelievable for me to forgive someone that quickly. Now I`ll ask you: what in your opinion encouraged me to go to Kanto after Hoenn`s Grand Festival?"

"Umm… That there were contests too?" Ash made a goofy smile.

"No silly, I remind you that I learned about contests in Kanto when I was in your house. The truth is, I wanted to be with you. You made my life better and I couldn`t stand letting you go away from me" she blushed a little. "And through next part of our journey I assured myself that I made a good decision. You would stop doing anything to help me with my training. No one did more for me than you. I keep all of memories with you deep in my heart, and thanks to this half of a ribbon" she pulled out her little treasure. "I always feel that you`re with me. You see, after our meeting in Sinnoh I realized something very important, and also, I decided than when I meet you again, I won`t leave you like I did in Kanto. And that`s why I won`t let you go there only by yourself!" May ended her speech.

"May, I…" the boy was speechless. "I didn`t know that you thought this about it all… But try to understand me…"

"I won`t understand you" May`s attitude changed to a serious one. "Ash, you`re not acting like your normal self!"

"What do you know!" the raven-haired trainer shouted without thinking. He quickly realized that it wasn`t the best thing to do when May`s eyes started to water.

"What do I know?" she asked with a weak voice, she was getting despaired "I know enough to see that now you act like an mentally unstable child. You are not thinking clearly and you`re not Ash Ketchum!"

"What do you mean by saying that I`m not Ash Ketchum?!"

"As I was saying for twenty minutes, I used to know you for a long time. And I know that the real Ash is confident, brave, caring and he can keep cool blood in worst moments" she started to cry. "And right now you`re not the Ash I..." she stopped for a moment, her heart nearly bumped out of her chest. "You`re not the Ash I... fell in love with!"

With those words she turned to the exit and ran away, still crying.


	20. Chapter 20

A man with brown hair was sipping his drink in peace, when suddenly some of his employees rushed into his office in a hurry. They were gasping heavily, so they were running as fast as they could to their boss, as Giovanni expected. He put down his drink slowly on a desk, which was standing near to him and crossed his arms on his chest, changing his expression to a serious one. It frightened a group of men, nevertheless one of them was able to overcome his fear and speak up. He made a quick bow and reported.

"Sir, we caught our second target, and this time no one was looking after us."

"That`s bad" Giovanni said calmly. "I really hoped that champion will go after you. Ehh, it seems like you can`t get everything" Giovanni got up from his chair and turned to his personnel. "Now, I would be very grateful if you were so nice to lead me to our... prisoner. I have some things to talk to her."

With those words he left the room. His loyal agents walked after him in silence, trying to guess what will happen to a honey-haired girl. When they got to the destination, Giovanni turned to them and raised his hand in order to stop them.

"I will go there alone, you can go back to your work" he said and disappeared in a chamber before any of his men could respond.

The air in here was very stinky and it was very hard to even breathe. Team Rocket`s boss had to cover his nose with hand, because the stink was getting stronger as he slowly approached one single cell on the end of this giant chamber. Giovanni opened the door to it and looked around. The only thing that was there was a big wooden pillar, to which the honey-haired girl was attached. She was tied with a solid rope, while her mouth was covered with a flax rag. Fear in her eyes was very visible, and when Giovanni noticed it, he giggled evilly. He knelt down to be at the height of her eyes and made a friendly expression in order to calm the girl down, but it had the opposite effect on her.

"Hello there, young girl. Or maybe I should call you by your name, it`s Serena, huh?" she closed her eyes to not look at him. "Please don`t be scared, no one is going to hurt you. You`re only a bait for a bigger fish. I hope that your raven-haired friend will arrive in here to save you, I need him to complete my plans. Don`t you think that he will be ideal for taking over the world with me?" she shook her head as if she wanted to say "no", but it only made Giovanni laugh. "Ha ha ha, sorry, I forgot that he isn`t like me, at least not now. But he will help me, even if he doesn't want to. And as for you, just relax, and stop crying" with those words he left the cell, leaving the frightened girl alone. He shouted to the nearest agent to come to him, and when he arrived, Giovanni caught him by his shirt and pulled him closer.

"Listen, you will be standing behind this door. Don`t let anyone even try to touch her, she`s too valuable for us, at least for now" he punched the man into a wall and slowly walked out of the chamber.

* * *

Ash was standing alone in a huge hall situated in Petalburg`s port. He was blankly looking at the floor, which got attention of Pikachu, who saw the incident that happened here a few minutes ago. He felt sorry for his master, but he knew that he can`t do anything to help him right now. So he jumped on the nearest bench and sat on it, with his head turned to his trainer.

Ash in the meantime noticed his little friend and walked very slowly in his direction. He sat next to Pikachu and hid his face in his hands. May`s words hit him like a ton of bricks, there was no doubt about this.

"…" Ash tried to speak, but no words came out of his mouth. He started to feel powerless, too many problems appeared in his life in a short period of time.

" _What should I do now_?" he thought. " _It all escalated too quickly. First, those scumbags kidnaped Serena and swam away in unknown direction. Tallonflame hasn`t come back yet, so I can do nothing about it. Second, May is angry at me and I also can`t do anything in this case, because I must wait here for Tallonflame._ "

He groaned silently as he looked at his yellow friend. Pikachu jumped on his trainer `s lap and cuddled into him, making Ash smile for a second. But only for a second.

"Pikachu…" Ash slowly spoke. "Do… do you think that May will forgive me?" Pikachu smiled to the raven-haired boy and nodded, but Ash still wasn`t convinced. "Look, we were travelling together for such a long time, and I have never noticed any signs of her affection towards me. If I wasn`t that blind, she wouldn`t run out of here crying. And the worst thing is that I can`t go talk to her!" Ash clenched his fists in anger. "I only hope that she will finally understand me. I only hope that I didn`t break her heart, because if I did…"

"Tallonflame!" a loud shout interrupted Ash`s monologue as a giant red bird appeared in front of the trainer. Ash raised his eyebrow as if he was asking his bird a question, and his Pokemon nodded and took off into the air. Ash released Charizard with a quick move and jumped on his back, in the meantime gesturing him to follow Tallonflame. They flew away from the port after a few seconds, heading to no-one-knows-where.

" _I`m sorry May… I`m very sorry_ "

* * *

The streets in Petalburg City were always very loud and full of people, but surprisingly at this evening they were totally empty. No sounds could be hearable, except of silent cry of a girl. But even this sound disappeared eventually.

May was slowly walking back to her house. She was still sobbing, but she was able to calm down a bit. Through all the way to the gym she was thinking about what happened between her and her best friend. She was mentally punching herself for acting like this.

" _I am a monster_ " she thought. " _He had enough on his head to think about and I made it even worse._ "

It was 9PM when she entered her house. May was hoping that her parents would be asleep at this time, but as she stepped on a first stair to the next floor, the doors from her parent`s bedroom have opened and revealed Caroline.

"May! Is everything okay?" she asked with a worry. May turned to her and tried to stay calm, but two seconds later she erupted with tears and threw herself at her mother, who at first was surprised, but she quickly led her daughter to the living room and sat with her on a sofa.

"May, please calm down and tell me what happened…" Caroline was thrilled after seeing her daughter in this state. "Did they do something to you?"

"Mom…" May mumbled through sobs. "I`m okay… but everything else is not okay…" and she bursted out with tears again. "Ash rescued me and took care of me… and then I had this dream… and then they took Serena…"

"Hold on dear" Caroline looked at her daughter – Stop crying and tell me everything again, but now with all details.

"Ok, I will try" May sobbed again. "Last night I had a dream, where I met Serena. We talked a bit and she said that she`s giving up on Ash and she`s leaving for Kalos, but you probably know that by now" May wiped off a few tears from her eyes. "Ash had a dream, in which he found out that something bad may happen to Serena, so… so we took off as fast as we could, but Team Rocket kidnaped her before we could do anything!" she clenched one of her fists. "And after that I acted like a snobbish child! Ash was depressed after this all and when he started ignoring my words, I started to shout at him and… and I think… I think that I… I said to him that I.. love him…"

"Oh dear" Caroline hugged her daughter tighter; she was happy that May finally realized her feelings and she would probably tease her about this, but she knew that at the moment it wouldn`t be a good thing to do that. "I`m sorry to hear it."

"And the worst thing is that when I should comfort him and act like a real friend, I made things even worse! Now he won`t focus on rescuing Serena because he will think about what I said to him earlier! I`m hopeless!"

"Don`t you dare saying it again!" Caroline said a bit louder. "You`re an amazing girl May, and it`s not your fault that you acted like that. People who are in love always do some stupid things, and you`re not an exception. I know Ash for as long as you do, and I know that he will be able to concentrate on rescuing Serena. Sure, it will be on his mind, but he`s strong, and I know that he will come back to us with Serena soon. Now, please get some sleep dear, we`ll talk tomorrow" and with those words Caroline stood up and approached the door.

"But I can`t stay here and do nothing when I know that Ash may be in real danger!" May protested. "They will be better prepared than when they caught me! I have a bad feeling that he won`t do it mom!" she started to shake out of nervousness. Caroline only sighed.

"May… I fully understand what you mean, but you can do nothing; please go upstairs and try to sleep. I beg you: don`t do anything stupid. We were very worried about you through last few days; don`t make us worry even more."

May stood up as well and ran past her mother to the corridor, where she started to head to her room. She threw herself at her bed and started to cry again. She was lying like that for fifteen minutes, when suddenly she jumped on the floor and looked through the window at the sky, while still sobbing.

"I can`t stay here and do nothing. I must help Ash!" she said to herself as she opened the window and jumped out of it. Then, she dashed in the city center direction.

* * *

The doorbell suddenly rang in one of Petalburg`s hotels. A green-haired boy stood up from his bed with an angry look on his face. He didn`t like to be woken up like this at the midnight, but it must have been something very important, if a person behind the door was knocking repeatedly for five minutes. Drew walked up to the door and opened them. And at this moment he experienced a shock.

"M.. May? What are you doing here at this hour?" he asked, very surprised at the identity of his guest.

"Look, I don`t have much time, so I`ll ask you right now: can I borrow Flygon from you?" the brunette asked with a desperate tone of her voice.


	21. Chapter 21

It was midnight when Ash made it to the location, which Tallonflame considered to be Team Rocket`s base. It was situated on the north of Kanto, far from any cities or villages, so it was a perfect place to hide from people`s awareness. When you were flying from the air, the base was nearly invincible; you had to land on the ground to notice a few details that proved that Tallonflame was right. One of them was a large piece of glass that was situated in one of the valleys. It was covered with many plants, some of them were the same plants that Ash had met in the base, where Team Rocket was keeping May. It was a perfect point to strike, but Ash wasn`t stupid. He knew that this time his enemies will be ready for him to come.

"If we want to go inside, we must dig a tunnel under that main corridor" Ash pointed out to show his Pokemon what he had on his mind. "Flareon will take care of it. When he will end his work, it will be Sceptile`s and Greninja`s turn to get rid of some guards that will surely be somewhere near. After that, we should sneak into the chamber, where they are keeping Serena" the raven-haired trainer sighed. "It also won`t be easy, because we don`t know where is it situated. And, we can`t take this information from any of the people from inside of the base, because they will surely alarm the others."

The loyal Pokemon agreed with their trainer: trying to get information like this was very risky. While they were arguing about it all, no one noticed that Snorlax woke up from his long nap. He moaned loudly, which bring Ash`s attention to him. When Ketchum realized that Snorlax was lying near him, an idea came into his mind.

"Okay, maybe there is a chance to find it out. When we`ll be inside, I`ll release Snorlax from its Pokeball and he will try to get the attention. It won`t be so hard for him, and also no one will hurt him because of his… high amount of fat. Furthermore, if anyone will just try to do something to Snorlax… ouch. That should give us a chance to sneak into the main room, where all of the machines and databases are situated. There we will get what we want."

Only Snorlax made any sound when Ash has ended his talk. It was a burp, but it sounded quite as an agreement for Ash`s plans.

"Then, Charizard and I are going to break into the right chamber and release Serena. You, guys, will cover our back while we will be running out of this place. Be sure to watch at yourselves, because we can`t leave anyone behind us. I know that it will be hard for all of us, but I believe in you. Will you help me?" Ash threw his punch in the air with his confident smile back on his place, and after a few seconds all of his Pokemon imitated his move.

* * *

"Flareon, are you ready?" the trainer with auburn eyes asked his dog-like Pokemon. Flareon, being himself, just snorted at his trainer as if he tried to say " _Are you kidding me? I`m always ready_ " and dug a pair of his front legs into the ground. It was a matter of seconds when he disappeared completely, leaving only a hole width for two meters. If he wasn`t in this kind of situation, Ash would be very impressed by his Pokemon`s progress, but in this case only Serena`s safeness was important to him. Flareon was digging very silently, and after 5 minutes he came back with a proud smile on his face.

"Okay guys, as we planned, I`m putting some of you into Pokeballs, be sure to get ready for action!" and with those words Ash returned Tallonflame, Flareon and Snorlax. Sceptile and Greninja jumped into the hole without their trainer to clear the way for him. But Ash instead of following them decided to wait a bit and looked at the sky, which was filled with many stars this evening. He closed his eyes and pulled his cap closer to his face.

"Pikachu, you know that if something will go bad, we can never return from there?" he said quietly. His yellow friend released a single Thunderbolt on his trainer and yelled proudly at him. Ash, who was invulnerable to these types of attacks (because of Pikachu`s tendency to use them) could only smile.

"Yeah, I also think that it was a stupid question. Let`s go!" and with those words they jumped into Flareon`s hole.

* * *

"(Don`t you think that it`s a little too dark in here?)" Greninja asked.

"(Yeah? No kidding, I can see nothing!)" Sceptile hissed at his partner.

"(Well, we could bring some light with us, but it would be too risky. At least my senses are very useful for these kinds of situations)" Greninja pointed in an unknown direction. "(For example, somewhere there are four people, all of them adults. One is a woman and three others are men. One of them has overweight, the woman is on her period and…)"

"(Woah, hold on Froggy)" Sceptile whispered. "(We don`t need a summary of their lives, just focus on a number of them. By the way, how were you able to learn so much information about them?)"

"(Special training can work miracles)" Greninja smiled. "(I can train you after this mission if you want)"

"(I don`t need any training, especially from a frog)" Sceptile laughed quietly.

"(Okay, if you say so)" Greninja said and disappeared from Sceptile`s side. The green Pokemon didn't notice it and kept going into the direction where Greninja disappeared. So he was very surprised when from out of nowhere he heard a swish on his other side.

"(The way is clear, we can go through)" Greninja whispered.

"(What?)" Sceptile was speechless.

"(You didn`t hear me? I cleared the way. All of them are unconscious for a while. The woman with her period and this fat one too.)"

"(But how were you able to do this so quickly?!)"

"(You see, that training we were talking about gave me various skills, and also I`m very quick now, but you probably know that already.)" Greninja shrugged. "(But, you didn`t want it, so I hope that you are on the same level as I am, because if you`re not…)"

Before he could end, something barked above him. One second later, something crashed onto the ground heavily. When Greninja focused on the object, he noticed that it was a large Mightyena. When he looked at Sceptile, the giant lizard-like Pokemon shrugged, imitating Greninja nearly perfectly.

"(Why are you so surprised? Don`t tell me that you didn`t notice that overgrown dog! You know, he could bite off your head, or something. Luckily, I also had some training, and maybe I can teach you to gain some reflex.)" he laughed, while Greninja could only shook his head in annoyance.

"(Maybe let`s focus on our mission now. This corridor is clear, so our trainer will be able to move around carefully. Now, let`s try to find his girl, she must be somewhere there)" Greninja said.

"(You mean the blonde?)" Sceptile asked. "(I thought that he prefers the brunette that we have been travelling with. You know, there was a time when everyone around thought that they were mates… or…? Well, I don`t know how they are calling mates in their language, people are weird.)"

"(I don`t know about his life before Kalos, but I can say that the blonde and our trainer are close. I had the opportunity to observe them for over a year and I know that she is highly interested in him. She proved it in many situations, but he wouldn`t notice her actions. But even if I am a Pokemon, I can say that she`s very attractive, and maybe he finally noticed it, assuming from his reaction to all of this)" Greninja frozed and caught Sceptile`s arm.

"(Wha…)" Sceptile couldn`t end, because Greninja quickly covered lizard`s mouth with his hand. They stood like this for a while, before Greninja let go Sceptile`s face and started walking again. And that was a bad decision. They heard some clicks and suddenly, the lights came on. There was a huge group of Team Rocket`s agents with Pokeballs in their hands, who were grinning evilly at two Ash`s Pokemon. Sceptile and Greninja slowly looked at each other.

"(Well)" Greninja started. "(We both didn`t notice them, so I assume that it`s a draw?)"

"(Yeah, you can say that)" Sceptile turned to their enemies. "(Now, let`s see who is going to eliminate more of them.)"

* * *

Ash was walking through another one of many corridors in this base. In the background he heard some shouts and cries. Well, Snorlax was doing his job pretty well.

The trainer used a small flashlight to read the inscription, which was written on the door. He sighed when he realized that it meant 'Toilet'.

"Gah, the same thing again! I`m starting to wonder about if we are ever going to find this stupid room" he said quietly. Pikachu felt his master`s pain, so he started thinking about a way to solve this problem. Something came into his mind as he jumped of his trainer`s shoulder. He started running in some direction and when he found the thing that he was searching for he released a single spark from his finger to help his trainer in locating him. When Ash stopped walking in front of the door, he used his flashlight and started reading the inscription.

"It means… the Kitchen" he sighed again. "Pikachu, I understand that you are hungry and believe me, after this mission I`ll buy you twenty bottles of Ketchup if you want, but please, focus on our mission right now."

Pikachu just pointed again at the door. Ash understood that his yellow friend wasn`t going to give up, so he opened the door. And he was very surprised because of what he saw inside.

There were tons of computers and other electronic stuff. There were also some databooks, which were put on a shelf near the entrance. Ash opened his mouth in awe, while Pikachu looked at his trainer angrily.

"Woah… Sorry for underestimating you Pikachu. But how did you know…?" Ash stuttered. Pikachu simply touched his cheeks and pointed out to the computers in the room.

"Yeah, I forgot that you can feel the electricity, even if it`s coming from the electronical stuff" he rolled his eyes. "Okay, now let`s look for some kind of map… There!" he pointed out to the piece of paper, which was hanging on the wall. He started to examine it, and after a while he turned his head to Pikachu with a smile on his face.

"The prison is down this corridor, so I suppose that they keep Serena in there" he said. "But there probably will be some enemies, will you take them down for me?"

Pikachu nodded and jumped onto the ground, ready to electrocute some bad guys. Ash sprinted towards the door to the prison chamber and opened them, to reveal three people inside. Pikachu released a single Thunderbolt, and that was enough to make them unconscious, at least for a few hours. When it was safe, Ash walked inside to discover a giant cave-like room with some stalactites and stalagmites. It wasn`t the nicest place to be in for sure. The trainer started to look around to find anything, and he noticed a medium-sized cage on the end of the chamber. He quickly ran to it, picking up Pikachu by the way, and stopped running in front of the cage. He noticed a person inside, and his heart broke in half when he realized, that it was Serena. She started to shake her head in fear, but it was too late. Ash heard the footsteps behind him, and when he turned back, he saw a well-built man with a brown hair and an evil smile on his face.

"Well, isn`t that Ash Ketchum, the Kalos Champion?" Giovanni said. "It`s an honor to have you as my guest."


	22. Chapter 22

"I expected you, Ash, but a bit earlier, but that`s no problem at all; the only thing that counts right now is that finally you are here" Giovanni grinned evilly while looking at certain raven-haired trainer.

"Let her go, Giovanni" Ash said, trying to not show any emotions, but his rage was visible. And that made the leader of Team Rocket even more satisfied.

"Why would I let her go? To me, it looks like she`s very happy in here. Just look at her: does she say anything about her being uncomfortable about something? I don`t think so" Giovanni responded with enormous pride in his voice. "Look, I know that you may be angry about the way I invited you in here, but don`t you think that the way you welcomed a member of your family is a bit too mean?"

Ash`s eyes widened in shock as he took a step back, but he remained calm and started walking slowly in Giovanni`s direction.

"I don`t know what you meant a minute ago, but to be honest, I don`t care. You kidnaped two of my closest friends, and believe me: you`re going to pay for this!" and with those words Ash started to run rapidly to Giovanni, in order to throw himself at the evil boss of Team Rocket and punch him, but something made him stop. He stopped right in front of widely smiling Giovanni, who was the last person he saw before collapsing on the ground. The brown-haired man looked at now unconscious body, and then turned to his left side, where, behind a stalactite, a silver-haired grunt was standing, with something, which looked like a gun.

"I only hope that you used the right bullets, Syer" Giovanni slowly started. "If you killed him, you will be next, but your end will be much more… painful" he said while he was walking to his agent. Syer was slightly scared by the words from his boss.

"N…no Giovanni, those bullets were made specially to put the target in sleep. In an hour he will be conscious again" Syer stuttered.

Giovanni wasn`t convinced. He walked to the body and knelt down to see if the boy was still alive. Luckily, his grunt was right; Ash was still breathing and it didn`t look like he was going to die at least not now.

"Okay, take him and come with me, I have a special place to keep him" Team Rocket`s leader said and stood up. Syer wanted to say something, but he decided to not say anything at all. After what happened in Alpha Base, his position in the organization was endangered, and it was only a will of Giovanni that left him alive after that. Butch, on the other case, wasn`t so lucky: Giovanni threw him to a cage with three Pyroars, which were transferred here recently from Kalos. Syer didn`t want to think about what happened with his friend.

"But Boss, why do we need him anyways?" Syer asked, while he was walking behind Giovanni through the corridors. "There are so many other trainers, like Lance, or even the guy who was beaten by Ketchum in semi-finals of Sinnoh League" Syer asked. "I heard that he won this year`s edition of it! Or Cynthia... If you don`t mind, I`ll be very glad to kidnap her, I think that she would be more useful than…"

"It looks like you don`t understand my plan at all" Giovanni sighed. "Do you think, that if there was other possibility, I wouldn`t get Cynthia, or anyone else? The point is, that Ash knows Manaphy for a long time. It trusts him, so it`ll be easier to get control of all water creatures, including Kyogre. And remember, that Ash is the strongest trainer at the moment."

"I see… but what will you do afterwards? Most of water types cannot fight on land, so they may be useless in the process of taking control over the world" Syer asked.

"Who said that we must fight on land?" Giovanni laughed evilly. "My main target is Kalos, which is surrounded by water from north and east. On the other side of the region is a mountain range. If we take control over coast, the region will be cut off from any supplies. I`m sure that the other regions won`t fight against us when they see that Kalos is under our control. And we will attack them next" Giovanni ended, grinning maniacally. Syer was afraid of that side of his boss, but he had no choice, he knew that he must work in this organization, even if he didn`t want to do it.

"So… can I ask you about what you said back in the chamber? About you being this boy`s family?" Syer asked, looking at the unconscious trainer, who was placed on the agent`s shoulders. The silver-haired boy was tired as hell; how could Ketchum be so heavy, when he looked like a very slim person?

"I thought that you will ask about it" Giovanni responded. "But there`s no reason that would stop me from telling you the whole story. It`s true, we are related. Not many people knows, but I had a brother, who was also a champion. He managed to win the first tournament he had participated in! He had so much talent… But he wanted to stay on the good side. I tried so many times to recruit him, but he would always refuse. He found a love of his live and he settled down in Pallet, which wasn`t that big as it is now."

"I suppose that this man was a father of our champion, huh?" Syer asked.

"Yes, you`re right. We weren`t staying in contact for many years, but then I decided to try to take control over Kanto. It was fifteen years ago, I caught three Legendary birds: Moltres, Zapdos and Articuno. I was very close to make my dreams come true, but he decided to stop me. And he did, but he sacrificed himself in order to stop me. You see, I built a machine that could transfer the energy of Pokemon into a nuclear power. I wanted to use the legendaries I caught as the power plants, but my brother damaged my machine and released all of the birds. But he paid the highest price to do it; the machine exploded and tons of radioactive fluids spread all over our base. I rescued myself, but he wasn`t so lucky." Giovanni stopped, but after a minute he burst out with laugh. "This idiot left his wife and one year old son alone. I spared them only because I felt sorry for the poor women. And I hoped that one day his son wouldn`t be as stupid as his father and he will join me."

"And you think that he will agree to your terms?" Syer asked.

"He will, because if he refuses to help us, I`ll make sure that his 'friend' will be executed, right in front of him, and then, he will also die" and with those words he ended talking. Through all the way to a mysterious room he remained silent. But the evil grin didn`t leave his face.

* * *

"Ugh… my head"

Ash opened his eyes and noticed, that he was lying on an open field, which was surprisingly similar to the one in Pallet, where he used to play with Gary when he was young. The boy tried to touch the back of his head, but a great pain made him fall on grass and lie there for a few minutes. While trying to get up, he put his hand on the ground, but instead of grass, he felt something hard. He looked up and jumped back, when he noticed someone.

A mysterious man was wearing a black jacket, blue jeans and gray sneakers. Ash looked up at his face and noticed the hair similar to his, it the same color and style. The man smiled widely and offered Ash a hand. The boy was careful, but he accepted it, and with the help of the man he stood up.

"I see that you received a hard shot in the back of your head, huh?" the man asked, looking at Ash with worry.

"Yeah, you can say that" Ash spoke. "But thanks for helping me to get up, do I know you?"

"Probably not, it`s been a long time since we last saw each other" the man shrugged. "But it isn`t important. I heard that you`re in much trouble right now. Well, everything is better than being in Team Rocket`s base, especially when it`s Giovanni who wants you."

"How did you…" Ash asked, but was halted by the man.

"You don`t have to know about the way I know about it. I`m here to help you. And when I say 'help', I mean that I want to prepare you for a mental battle that you will have to fight. Giovanni is very smart; he knows how to talk to people to receive what he wants. And, he`s a liar. Even if he says that he will do something when you agree to his conditions, he will do the opposite thing, so there`s no reason to really work with him, if you`re on the good side of course"

"So he would still kill Serena…?" Ash asked with a worry.

"Probably, but there is a hope" the man spoke. "Giovanni may look like a true evil, but he has a few weak spots; he is very impatient, and deep in his heart he feels that you will defeat him. He is afraid of you, Ash."

"Umm… thanks, but why are you helping me anyway? And who are you?" Ash asked, slightly confused after what he heard recently.

"I would love to tell you everything, but there`s no time for it. You can wake up in every second, so I have a final thing to say to you: whatever happens, don`t give up; there is always a way to win against evil. Take care and remember what I said to you, okay?" the man smiled at the raven-haired trainer, who could only nod weakly, as he started to remember the man to who he was talking. The mysterious person started to walk away, and after a few seconds he vanished. But before he disappeared completely, Ash was able to hear the last sentence of the man.

"Good luck son, I believe in you."

* * *

"Wake up already!" a loud scream woke Ash up. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that it was the silver-haired grunt who yelled at him. He was holding him by his wrists, which were also tied with a rope. Ash turned his look to the other person that was in the room. Giovanni was sitting behind his desk, his hands wrapped tightly on his chest. He was smiling – and that wasn`t a good sign.

"Finally" he spoke. "I was worried that you won`t regain your consciousness. I suppose that you already know about my plans, hmm?" he asked, not looking away. Ash growled and tried to break free, but Syer punched him in his back, which only made more pain to the trainer.

"Try to not kill him, idiot" Giovanni said calmly. "So, you probably know. I want to say that it`s hard to treat my nephew like that, but you must understand me."

The brown-haired man stood up and turned on a TV, which was connected to all of the cameras in his base. On the screen Ash noticed a cage, where the poor honey-haired girl was kept. He gritted his teeth, knowing already that he can`t do anything to rescue her.

"You see? She`s safe. And when you`ll help me out in my plan, she`ll be free. And I`ll make you a dictator of Kalos when everything will be done."

"I`m not interested in being a dictator" Ash muttered under his nose, but Giovanni could still hear him. He tried to stay calm, but his patience was going to an end. He was truly feared because of this boy, but he managed to not let the smile disappear from his face.

"Your choice. So…" he sat down on his chair again. "Let`s start with Manaphy: give it`s Pokeball to me, now!" Giovanni said, gritting his teeth.

"I would, but the problem is that I don`t have it with me, you can check if you want" Ash raised his head and smiled. Giovanni growled at him and it looked like that the boy was finally able to make him angry. But the brown-haired man couldn`t say anything in response.

A giant explosion threw the Team Rocket`s boss out of his chair. Syer also fell, but without luck; a rock hit him in the head and he collapsed onto the ground. Ash was the only one who remained conscious after explosion. He looked around the room, which was very hard because of amount of smoke. He noticed a giant hole in the ceiling. A Flygon was looking at the trainer through it. It didn`t make any sense to Ash, and he felt even more confused when someone grabbed him by his arms and cut off the ropes on his wrists. When the air cleared a bit, Ash saw a familiar person in front of him.

"M…May, you`re here!" he stuttered in shock.

"It looks like just in time!" the brunette said with a playful wink.


	23. Chapter 23

Ash has not recovered from a huge shock until he felt that May cut off the rope, which was tied on his hands. He sighed in relief as he started to feel his wrists again. But he quickly focused on a question, which appeared in his mind. He turned to the brunette, who was looking at him sweetly, with her hands clasped on her chest.

"Umm… excuse me, if it sounds a little bit mean… but weren`t you supposed to stay in Petalburg…?" Ash muttered, trying to hide his still rising embarrassment. May giggled seeing this and she quickly covered his lips with her index finger. When he raised his eyebrow in a questioning way, she winked at him and pulled her hand away from his face, chuckling like crazy.

"What?" Ash moaned, still looking at the brunette. May turned around and looked at her friend with a smile.

"Nothing, it`s just your face. The look you gave me when I jumped into the room was priceless!" she giggled. "And, to answer your first question, yeah, I was supposed to stay there" with those words she grabbed a Pokeball from her pocket and recalled a Dragon-like Pokemon, which was still sitting on the roof of the base. "Flygon, thanks you for your help. So, back to the topic, you did not think, that when you`re trying to be a hero, I will sit in my bedroom and simply wait for your return, right?"

"I knew that you won`t hear to me, but I had a hope that maybe this time it`ll be different… Uhh, nevermind" Ash scratched back of his head. "Anyways… thanks for your help, I don`t think that I would survive this time…"

"At your service" May bowed to him and burst out with laugh. "Okay, enough of this" she said as she grabbed Ash`s hand and started to run out of the room. "I think that Serena has enough of waiting for us. Ash?" she turned to look at him. "Why are you so quiet?"

Ash did not respond instantaneously, he remained silent for nearly half of a minute before he spoke.

"Umm… it`s just a little weird to be the one who was rescued and not being rescuing myself" he shrugged with his free hand, not being able to hide the blush on his face. "And… I also try to find out why are you so… stubborn. And where the heck did you get that Flygon?"

"Oh Ash…" May said flirtatiously. "You must understand that you`re a human too. Everyone at some point in their lives will need a hand from another person, and you are not any exception. Flygon? Well… it`s Drew`s Pokemon, I`ll tell you later about it" She turned her head back to see where they were running. "And, about my stubbornness… I learned from the best."

Ash looked at her quizzically. When he understood what she meant at the end of her sentence, he smiled and shook his head in disbelief.

" _She is unbelievable_ " the trainer thought, giggling silently. He was still too loud, so May was able to hear him.

"You said something, Ash?"

"Nah, just keep running" the raven-haired trainer laughed.

* * *

They were in the main corridor, near the hole, from where Ash was able to sink into the base without gaining attention. Ash suddenly broke a grip on May`s hand and started to look around.

"Something happened?" May asked, not sure what made her friend to stop.

"Before we go back to the chamber, I must find my Pokemon" Ash said, still not turning to the brunette. "Let`s see… HEY GUYS, I`M HERE!"

Ash yelled loudly to let his friend locate him. He decided to wait a little, and after a minute he started to hear some silent steps.

"I hope that it`s one of them…" Ash said. May turned to the source of a sound and spotted a yellow creature running in their direction. Ash smiled and opened his arms, just in time to catch the rodent.

"Pikapi!" Pikachu cried in happiness as he finally found his trainer. He cuddled in Ash`s chest, but stopped immediately when he noticed May standing right behind Ash. The Pokemon threw himself at the girl and started to coo, in the meantime rubbing his cheek against hers.

"It`s great to see you too, Pikachu" May said as she hugged the rodent. Ash smiled at the scene, but he decided to break the happy atmosphere.

"Pikachu, do you know where the others are?" Ash asked. His Pokemon nodded and jumped off May`s hands. He started to run to the same place from which he came a few minutes earlier. Ash looked at May and started to follow Pikachu.

After four minutes of running he noticed an end of hallway. There, lying on the ground, was Snorlax, who was probably sleeping, suggesting by his loud snores. Next to him Greninja and Sceptile were having an argument, but no one could say what about. Charizard was sitting in front of Snorlax, trying to teach Flareon one of his fire attacks, while Tallonflame was sitting in the corner, stroking his feathers peacefully. They all stopped their actions when they saw their trainer. Everyone, except of Snorlax, roared happily at the sight of Ash.

"It`s good to see you guys, did you knock out all of the grunts in this base?" Ash asked. All of his Pokemon nodded. Even Snorlax, who was brutally woken up by the outburst of the other Pokemon.

"Excellent. Now we can go to rescue Serena and…" Ash punched his fist in the air in a triumphal gest, but suddenly, he felt a tug on his trousers. When he looked down, he noticed his Flareon, who was trying to gain his attention.

"What`s the matter?" Ash asked. Sceptile stepped closer to his trainer and touched one of the blades on his arms. It started to glow, and the lizard-like Pokemon started to draw something on the wall with it. Although there wasn`t much light in the hallway, Ash recognized a message that Sceptile tried to share with him. On the wall was a drawing, which looked exactly like a legendary Pokemon Kyogre.

"Sceptile, are you saying that Kyogre is somewhere in this base?" Ash asked. His Pokemon nodded, and pointed out in the direction, where the huge Pokemon was prisoned. Ash growled, cursing in his mind. "I was supposed to save him. They must have transported him today… It`s good that he`s here, it will be much easier…"

Suddenly, the ground started to shake. Ash quickly realized what was happening. And it wasn`t anything good.

"Uh, guys? I think that someone punched an 'auto-destruction' button" Ash stuttered. May`s eyes widened in shock and fear.

"So what are we going to do?" she asked worriedly. Ash turned to her, grabbed her by her shoulders and looked straight in her eyes, making sure that she was listening to him.

"May, you will take Sceptile, Greninja, Charizard and Pikachu and you all will go to Serena. Make sure that she`s okay and then, both of you must get away from here immediately. And don`t try to argue with me this time" he added when he saw tears in her shocked eyes. "I`ll take Flareon, Tallonflame and Snorlax and I`ll go find Kyogre. I promised him that I`ll help him and I won`t broke that promise."

"But Ash…!"

"No buts May, I`m not sure if Giovanni`s still alive, so this four will come with you, just for your safety. I`ll take care of myself even if he somehow survived Flygon`s earlier Hyperbeam" he said and smiled reassuringly to May. "I know that you don`t want to leave me alone, but we won`t have enough time to take care of two problems. That`s why we must split up."

May looked at the ground in fear. She understood the gravity of the situation, and, even if it did hurt her, she must have agreed to what Ash said.

"May, I know that you can do this. Tou must be strong for Serena, and… for me."

The brunette turned her gaze again to the raven-haired boy, who did not change his expression: he was still smiling at her. May wiped off some tears that started to fall off her eyes and nodded to her friend.

"Okay, but promise me one thing"

"Sure, what is it?" Ash asked, but instead of getting a response, May threw herself at him and hugged him with all her might.

"Promise me that you`ll come back to me, Ash" May whispered directly into his ear. The trainer hugged her back and started to think about what was going to happen. His mind made a few scenarios, each one of them without happy ending. Luckily, Ash was able to shook those thoughts off and respond to his friend.

"I will. I would never leave you."

* * *

Serena was starting to lose any hope. After what happened to Ash in front of her, she was sure that she was going to die in the cage, completely alone. She slowly accepted her fate, knowing that there`s nothing she can do.

"Because of me, Ash is most likely to be dead, because there`s no way that he would join Team Rocket" Serena looked at the ground, or, where she thought the ground was. She couldn`t see her legs, there wasn`t any source of light in the chamber. And it wasn`t looking like any source of light was going to appear soon.

"Gah…" she sighed. "I only hope that my death will be quick and painless. The only thing that I regret is…"

Suddenly, she heard an explosion. Serena turned her head in the direction from where the noise was coming from, and noticed, that the main door to the chamber were destroyed, lying on the floor as a few pieces. To girl`s horror, something large flew through the door and stopped in front of her cage. As the girl looked at the creature, she realized that death came earlier than she expected. The creature raised its paw in fury, and Serena closed her eyes.

"Well… this is it."

She braced herself for a huge pain, but it never came. Serena after a few seconds carefully opened her eyes, only to see a Flygon, who was standing near a person, with a smirk on his face. Serena blinked twice, not believing her eyes.

"Need a hand?" the person started to walk in the honey-haired girl`s direction. Serena wanted to run away, but, because of the ropes on her hands and legs, she couldn`t. But a familiar face quickly made her stop doing anything.

"May!" Serena shouted in shock. "What are you doing here? Where`s Ash? Is he okay?" she added with a hint of worry in her voice.

"Yeah, he`s fine, right now he`s trying to release Kyogre from Giovanni`s hands." May said while cutting the ropes on Serena`s limbs. "And why I am here? Because of my stubbornness"

"Uuuhh.. okay" Serena muttered. She was very grateful towards May for breaking her free, but she was still uneasy with being near the brunette.

"Come on, can you walk?" May asked, helping Serena to get up. After doing a few steps Serena nodded. "That`s great, now let`s go find Ash, his Pokemon are waiting for us in the hall."

"Wait, what do you mean by 'his Pokemon'? You`re not saying, that he went somewhere without any of them?" Serena asked in fear. May raised her eyebrow and shook her head.

"Nah, he still has his Flareon, Tallonflame and Snorlax with him. I didn`t want to bring the rest of them here, but our raven-haired hero forced me to do this, and" she pointed at the corridor with her finger "although I trust in his abilities, we should go and help him immediately."

Serena nodded. Both of them started running, but Serena lowered her pace after a minute. When May turned to her friend, she noticed a weird look on Serena`s face.

"What`s going on?" May asked. Serena walked slowly towards the brunette and looked straight in her eyes.

"I… I only wanted to say…. That I meant everything what I said in the dream yesterday." Serena stumbled, with a sad smile on her face. Although, in her eyes was a deep pain. May noticed that, and without asking for agreement, she pulled Serena into the tightest hug she only could.

"I know, and… I wanted to thank you for this" May said. "I know that it isn`t easy to let someone else be with your crush, and I`m very grateful for this" with those words she released Serena from a hug. May looked at Serena, who, after realizing that she was crying, quickly wiped off tears from her face and smiled encouragingly.

"It`s okay May, now let`s go to Ash" May nodded and they ran away in Ash`s direction.


	24. Chapter 24

„And I thought that this day can`t get any worse…" Ash mumbled as he spotted the scenery in front of him.

After running through a one mile long corridor he nearly fell into a precipice, which was probably made while Team Rocket was extending the base. He was able to stop on the edge of it, but unfortunately, he lost his balance and fell down. The boy survived only thanks to Tallonflame, which he released from its Pokeball just in time for it to catch his trainer safely.

Now, he was standing in some kind of cave, far away from his friends. He didn`t know what to do, but his instinct was pursuing him to examine the cave. Because he had nothing else to do, the boy instructed Tallonflame to lighten up the place with a fire from its mouth. Then, Ash started to walk around the cave and he touched every wall that was there. And it was worth trying.

Ash accidentally put his hand on one of a convex stone, which was located in a southern part of the chamber, one meter above the ground. It vibrated softly, and Ash, who was shocked a little, jumped back and fell on the ground, exactly at his left arm. The raven-haired trainer hissed in pain, realizing that something bad happened with it. With the help of Tallonflame, he stood up and looked at the wall in front of him.

But there wasn`t any wall anymore; in front of him, Ash noticed a room, which looked like a haven. The only difference between this room and a haven was the fact, that it was isolated from an ocean. It was huge and in the center of it a giant pool filled with water was standing. Because of the fog inside, Ash wasn`t able to examine it a little bit better. But even through it he could see a big creature lying in the pool.

"Kyogre" Ash mumbled. Then, he remembered about what happened to his arm, and he looked at it. His limb was badly swollen, and it hurt like hell. Sadly, there was no time to cry about it, and Ash was realizing that. He ordered Tallonflame to flap with his massive wings to disperse the fog. The trainer released the rest of the Pokemon, which he had on hand and ran into the room.

He stopped in front of the pool, where a legendary was lying. Flareon was following his trainer, in the meanwhile trying to look around the room in search for any dangers. Snorlax simply laid himself on the ground and looked in his trainer`s direction, awaiting for any commands. Ash on the other hand, was too excited to even thing about a possibility of taking a break. He stopped walking when he was in front of Kyogre`s great mouth.

"Kyogre, I`m here to save you, just stay calm" Ash spoke, hoping for a response from the Water type. He waited, waited and waited, but no word was coming out of the creature. Ash started to feel uncomfortable, and a few seconds later something cracked behind him. Flareon noticed it and started to run to his trainer to cover him, but it was too late.

Ash was hit with a bullet right into his aching arm. Before he could scream in pain, he received one more – this time into his leg. Bleeding from two wounds, he fell on the ground. When the trainer raised his head weakly, he recognized the person who was standing there, with a pistol in his hand.

It was Giovanni.

The brown-haired man looked at his target with a maniac smile on his face. Satisfied by what he saw, he hid the riffle in his pocket and started walking towards Ash. The raven-haired trainer`s Pokemon shook off from the shock and threw themselves at Team Rocket`s leader, but Giovanni quickly released his own Pokemon – Nidoqueen and two Rhyperiors – and ordered them to stop the other creatures. When the battle started, he turned to the bleeding trainer and kneeled on one leg when he was close to him.

"I see that you have your father`s spirit Ash. That`s bad, without it you would live a little longer than that" Giovanni said with a smile. Ash looked at him with fury in his eyes and remained silent. He knew that he wasn`t going to survive anyway, so any insult wouldn`t do much to him. But he didn`t predict what was going to be said next.

"You are as weak as he was, trying to save the world from all the evil, but not being able to save yourself, or your friends" Giovanni continued. "He died while trying to stop me and my plan a while ago. He had so much talent, but unfortunately, his talent wasn`t going in pair with his mind; he was too stupid to understand how this world works. That it isn`t a nice place to live, that there are many dangers waiting for you in every corner on the street. That every man whom you meet on the street may be a serial killer or international gangster. He didn`t realize, that he must have been one of them to survive. And he paid the highest price for it." Giovanni stood up and turned his back to Ash. "You are exactly like him, and you are going to end exactly as he did."

With those words he pulled the weapon from his pocket and reloaded it.

"Don`t worry, as soon as you`ll be dead, I`ll take care of your two friends. And I`ll make sure that the brunette`s death will be the longest, be sure about it. Anyway, one of my agents was very interested in her. Maybe I can give him "a reward" before I take care of her…"

The man never ended his monologue. Suddenly, he felt that something crashed into his head. And it was the last feeling in Giovanni`s life. His corpse slowly fell onto the ground, revealing Ash, who was standing there with his fist raised in place, where Giovanni`s head was seconds ago. He was panting heavily, hardly being able to stand because of his injuries. Being close to losing his consciousness, he sat on the ground and looked at one of his wounds. It wasn`t looking very good.

Then, he raised his head, to see his Pokemon beating the last of Giovanni`s Pokemon. Nidorina pushed away Flareon, but Snorlax`s Hyper Beam, combined with Tallonflame`s Brave Bird was too much to handle. The Pokemon fell unconscious, crashing into the nearest wall. All of the Pokemon rushed into Ash`s direction, looking worriedly at his injuries.

"Snooor?" Snorlax asked, while trying to help his trainer in standing up. Ash shook his head with a smile and looked at his Pokemon.

"Thank you… thank you all for your braveness in this fight. I`m very proud of you all." He said as he looked at each of his friends. Then, he locked his eyes with Flareon`s. The fire dog was able to take down one of Rhyperiors completely by himself. Two Embers and three Tackles were enough to completely destroy his opponent.

"Flareon… I know that you may be tired, but can you do a favor for me?" he asked, with a weak voice. Flareon saddened and nodded with his small head, not sure about what Ash was going to ask him to do.

"I want you to find May and Serena. They are somewhere above this place, so take Tallonflame with you and go" he looked at his Bird-like Pokemon, which closed his eyes and nodded. "Please do it as fast as possible, I`m not sure if I will be able to wait for you... and someone has to release Kyogre."

All of his Pokemon that were with him in this moment started to scream in fear. If only Ash could understand them, he would hear sentences like "Nonsense" or "You are kidding, right?". But he wasn`t kidding this time, and Flareon, Tallonflame, and Snorlax knew that perfectly.

Not wanting to disappoint their trainer, Flareon jumped on Tallonflame`s back and took off to find the girls. Snorlax remained with Ash, desperately trying to keep him conscious.

* * *

"May, do you know where we are going exactly?" Serena asked, slightly worried. They were running for thirteen minutes now, still hearing an alarm above them. According to what May saw in Giovanni`s office, the auto-destruction of this place would occur in any moment, and they haven`t found any clue of Ash yet. They could only count on Charizard, Greninja, Sceptile and Pikachu, and, of course, on May`s intuition.

"I`m sure that when we had parted our ways, he went in this direction" May responded, as nervous as the honey-haired girl. She was scared that something really bad happened to the boy, whom she loved with all of her heart. She wouldn`t forgive herself if anything would happen to him, especially now. She started thinking about where could he been, but sadly, she couldn`t calm down. After a few seconds she mentally slapped herself.

" _Stop being so weak_!" she thought about herself. " _If you stay as scared and helpless as you are now, you won`t be able to help him_!"

"May?"

" _Ash is a very strong person, he will be ok, right now you must take care of yourself and Serena_ "

"May?!"

" _But it isn`t easy to not think about him when…"_

"May, look!"

Serena needed to shake May a little to gain her awareness. The honey-haired girl pointed out to something that was coming to them in a really fast pace. May braced herself for an impact, expecting some kind of fire ball to hit her, but she quickly realized, that it wasn`t that.

"Tallonflame and Flareon? Where`s Ash?" May asked happily. But when she noticed their expressions, her heart nearly broke in half.

Pikachu jumped on May`s shoulder and started asking Flareon about all of the details. When he heard about what happened to Ash, he jumped off and started to run in the direction, where Ash was supposed to be. At first, girls weren`t realizing what made Pikachu run this quick to his trainer. But then it hit them.

Something happened to Ash.

* * *

"Ash! ASH!" May started to scream in fear when she jumped off Charizard`s back. He had to carry her and Serena while flying into the precipice, in which Ash was lying. She started to run in trainer`s direction, not caring about anything else. When she ran into the giant room, she gasped. She noticed the giant legendary in the pool, but it wasn`t the reason of her reaction.

The brunette noticed Snorlax, who was standing above a person. This man wasn`t wearing his signature hat, which he had lost earlier. But she still recognized him immediately.

It was Ash.

May`s legs started to shake in fear. She walked slowly to her dying friend, not being able to look at him. When she finally did it, she froze in place.

Ash`s body was covered with blood. He had two wounds from bullets – one on his arm, second on his leg – and both of them were bleeding heavily. His face was pale and he was barely conscious. His eyes were closed and the only proof that he was still alive was his slow, irregular breathing.

"…Ash?" May asked, frightened by her friend`s state. Ash`s eyes slowly opened and he turned his head in her direction. He looked at the scenery behind the brunette and smiled.

"I… I see that you rescued Serena. I`m proud of you" he said, stuttering out of grogginess. May`s eyes started to fill with water.

"We`re getting you out of here, you hear me?" May asked, not being able to control herself anymore. "Everything will be okay, you`ll get back to full health in no time!"

Ash didn`t respond immediately. He smiled weakly and looked into May`s eyes. When she locked her sight with his, she understood what he meant. And she didn`t like it.

"May, I lost half of my blood. It`s a miracle that I`m still breathing."

"I don`t care, you`ll be alright, you hear me?" the brunette screamed in pain as she threw herself on Ash, trying to hug him. But he quickly pushed her away and covered her with his body.

May wasn`t sure what was happening, but she heard a shot. And three seconds later Ash fell on the ground, not conscious anymore. He received a bullet right in his chest.

May looked at the attacker and noticed a grey-haired boy, who was probably her age, holding a gun in his hands. Before he was slashed in half by enraged Sceptile, he was able to say one sentence, with a huge smile on his face.

"You destroyed my life, and now I took yours, Ash Ketchum."


	25. Chapter 25

**3 months later**

May was struggling to get through snowdrifts on the road to the local hospital. It was quite hard for her, but she got used to it after doing it every day.

Winter came to Hoenn region much sooner than everyone had expected it to come. It was only November when the first snowflakes started to fall from the sky. A few weeks later snow covered the entire region, and low temperatures that appeared very quickly forced most of the people to stay in their houses and leave them only when it was necessary. The worst situation was in Petalburg City, where snowdrifts often had two meters high. There was no traffic on the roads, because it was simply impossible to drive on icy roads. What was even worse, most of the shops were closed, and people were starting to suffer from hunger. The government of Hoenn had to deliver supply by helicopters to help the locals in surviving.

However, there was one family for whom harsh winter wasn`t any obstacle. They had their own stored food and water thanks to the father of the family, who was always preparing for this kind of situation. This allowed them to wait out the worst frosts in the comfort of their own house. They would never leave their house, however, one person from their family would always sneak out of the house. And this person was, of course, May.

Her parents tried to convince her to wait for the weather to calm down, but she wouldn`t listen to them. Even when she got sick after one of her daily escapades, she still would sneak out to the hospital. And why was she sneaking there? To see an important person, of course.

After what happened in Team Rocket`s base, she quickly ordered Charizard to pick up Ash and transport him to the best hospital in the entire region, which was located in Petalburg City. The raven-haired trainer was badly injured and when May and Serena arrived there right after Charizard, they heard that it`s most likeable that Ash won`t survive the night. The girls were traumatized, but they still had hope. They convinced the surgeons to remove the bullets off Ash`s body and disinfect his wounds. The operation was very long, and after eight hours the main surgeon told them that they were able to remove all of the bullets, but the boy was still in a critical state. He said that they should had been prepared for the worst.

The situation hadn`t changed after a week. The girls would just stay near Ash`s room, hoping to receive some good news about him, but unfortunately, the doctors didn`t want to say anything.

After a month of waiting, precisely at 11th November, they learned that wounds on Ash`s body were healing slowly, and that gave them a new amount of hope. A few days later Serena received a phone call from her mother, in which Grace told her about some tragedy in their family. Serena had to come back to Kalos, but she managed to say goodbye to May, who promised to inform the honey-haired girl about Ash`s state.

And then, the winter came. Many of the patients from the hospital have already left to their houses, and Ash remained as one of a few people who had to stay there. May wanted to transport him to her house, so she and her parents would take care of him, but he must have been connected to the life support. The brunette decided to visit him every day, so he wouldn`t be alone. And, although he was in coma, she knew that he needed a company.

Every time she came to him, she would spend a few hours relating everything that happened. Sometimes she would just sit there with him and think about the events from the past. There was a time when she fell asleep on the chair and the nurses had to make the effort to wake her up the next day. The hospital personnel accustomed to May`s presence, and she was even able to befriend some nurses that were taking care of Ash. Unfortunately, the doctors didn`t like her and they often tried to kick her out of the hospital. But then, the friendly nurses were taking care of the doctors and they never really did to her.

This day, May had a great humor. Maybe the weather was bad, and Ash was still in the hospital, but she couldn`t wait to spend another day by his side. Or bed, in this situation.

She opened the door to the hospital and looked at the reception she was coming by every day, and then one of the nurses stopped her.

"Mrs. May, there was a call to you a few minutes ago, from the girl who was here with you a few months ago" the woman said with a bright smile. "I would suggest you to phone her back, she looked kinda worried."

May nodded and turned to her left, where, three meters from her, a videophone was standing. She made her way to it and chose an option to call the latest number. After several seconds the screen flashed and Serena appeared on it.

"Hi May, you are really hard to track down, you know?" Serena said with a smile.

"So, why couldn`t you call me on my phone number?" May asked.

"Umm, I kinda forgot to get your phone number, so I phoned the hospital. I knew you would be there sooner or later, so I thought that it would be easier." Serena shook her hands in shame.

"I see" May said. "So, what did you want from me?"

"…" Serena was silent. She looked at her feet in sadness and sighed. Then, she looked up and started to speak.

"You remember the time, when I left Petalburg to return home?" she asked. When May nodded, Serena continued. "Well, I… lied about the tragedy. It wasn`t the reason of my departure."

"So, what was the reason?" May asked slightly surprised.

"To tell you the truth, I didn`t want to be there at the moment when Ash wakes up, you probably know why…" Serena saddened.

"I understand, and I don`t blame you" May said with a sad smile. "But he still hasn`t woke up yet."

"Let`s hope that he will wake up soon" Serena said. "He`s in coma for such a long time… I`m scared that he may not…" Serena couldn`t finish the sentence, because one of the nurses quickly ran to May and dragged her on the side.

"He`s awake Mrs. May, you hear me? He`s finally awake!" the nurse said with a big smile. May looked at her, dumbfounded. It took her a few minutes to fully understand what she said. But when she understood, she quickly informed Serena about what happened and hung up. She stormed into the room where her friend was lying and stopped in the doors. She locked her eyes at the bed. Ash wasn`t moving, but she noticed a major change in his appearance.

His eyes were opened.

"Ash?" May asked, feeling a sudden shyness. She slowly walked to the bed and sat on the chair.

"… May?" the raven-haired boy said weakly.

"Yes, Ash?" May barely hold back to not hug him at the moment she heard his voice after a few months of waiting.

"…Where the heck am I?" he asked, confused. He slowly tilted his head on the side. There he saw May, with her face wet from tears. "May, something happened?"

May wiped her face with her jacket and looked at him lovely. She took his hand in hers and locked her eyes with his.

"It doesn`t matter anymore" she said. "What`s important right now is that you are okay and I`m here with you"

Ash smiled at her and after a while tried to get up, but he failed to do so. He hissed in pain and lied back on the bed.

"I must have been hit really hard if I`m not able to stand up, huh?" he asked his friend.

"Well, you were shot three times, you had a broken arm, and you lost much of your blood." May said with a hearable hurt in her voice. "It was a miracle that you survived…"

"I see…" Ash said while looking at the ceiling. "And what about Kyogre?"

"I informed Nurse Joy about his location. She came there with a few strong trainers for secure and they released him to the sea again, so yeah, I think he`s good" May answered.

"Giovanni?" he asked with hate in his voice.

"Dead, you did quite a good job back there" May smiled proudly.

"And his grunt? The silver-haired one?"

"After… he shot you…" May stuttered. "Sceptile took care of him. He isn`t a danger anymore."

"Who was he by the way?" Ash asked.

"All I know is that he was an agent of Team Rocket for quite a long time. I talked to Officer Jenny and she told me that, according to the investigation she was doing, he spied on us while we were in Kalos. That`s why they knew where we were going."

"Ehh, how could I be so stupid" Ash said, angry. "I should have known that after winning the league some people would try to get me. I only put you and Serena in danger by travelling with you."

"Maybe" May agreed. "But it`s all over now, and you shouldn`t blame yourself. The most important thing is that Team Rocket doesn`t exist anymore. Now, try take some rest, you`ve just woke up from a coma."

"Yeah, you`re right…" Ash said and looked at her. "And what about you?"

"I`ll stay here with you, of course, if you want me to" May proposed, slightly blushing.

"Of course, I`d love you to stay here, but I see that you`re tired a little, maybe you should take a nap too…"

"I wouldn`t fall asleep even if I wanted to, especially now" May laughed. "But don`t worry about me now, just try to rest, okay?"

"Okay mom" Ash said and they both laughed.

* * *

After a few hours Ash was woken up by a sudden noise. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the door were opened. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his left side. His vision was still blurry, but the sight still shocked him.

May wasn`t there.

The boy panicked a little, not knowing where she was gone and what happened to her. He got up and quickly got out of bed. With bare feet he ran out of the room as fast as he could, and on the corridor he spotted May talking with some boy. May turned around and noticed Ash, standing there with a puzzled look on his face.

"You shouldn`t go out that fast, you know?" she sighed, but quickly smiled. "Nevermind. There`s someone who really wanted to see you."

Ash looked at the boy and without bigger problems recognized him.

"Hi! I`m glad that you`re okay!" the boy said, while pulling out his hand.

"Yeah, it`s good to see you Max" Ash responded and shook his friend`s hand.

* * *

"So, how is your journey around Hoenn?" Ash asked while sipping his tea. He and Max were sitting in a café that was located in the hospital. May wanted to talk to her parents, so she left the boys alone. Max shrugged and pulled out a case, in which were his badges.

"I have four badges, and I was going to challenge my dad today. But then my sister phoned me and asked me to come here. When I heard that you finally woke up, I couldn`t resist to come" Max laughed. "May told me the whole story and I know how did you get here. I knew that you are a tough guy but still… wow, I admire you even more!"

"Hey, I`m going to blush!" Ash laughed. "But the truth is, I wouldn`t be there if it wasn`t May who saved me back there.

"Yeah" Max said and looked through the glass that separated the café from the lounge. May was standing in front of the videophone and was probably talking to Norman and Caroline. "I talked to her several times in those three months. She would spent every day in the hospital, just sitting with you to keep you company. She would come here even if the weather was disastrous"

"Really…?" Ash said, shocked. He started to feel bad for the girl. She spent so much time worrying about him. He knew that he could never repay her for this.

"Yeah" Max said and both of them became quiet. They focused on May, who was still talking to her parents. They noticed how happy she was when she was explaining what happened.

"I never saw her that happy before" Max said.

Ash could only nod at this.

Max looked down at his cup of tea. He took a spun and looked at it, trying to think about what to say next. After a minute he looked at May again, noticing that Ash still hadn`t looked away from her.

"She loves you a lot" Max said. "I hope that you realize it"

"I do, Max" Ash said with a sad tone. "I do"


	26. Chapter 26

**Several days later**

Ash was sitting alone in his hospital room. It was 7AM and he was waiting for the routine control that was taking place every day at this hour. He was nervous, because he was waiting to get the results of his X-ray examination. His chance of leaving this place depended on them.

Also, May hasn`t arrived yet. She would come to the hospital every day at 6PM, but today she didn`t come at this hour. Ash explained to himself, that she had a lot to do in the house. But still, somewhere in his mind there was a feeling that something wasn`t right. And he had a feeling that he forgot about something very important. He wasn`t able to remember what it was, because someone opened the door to his room. He hoped that it was the brunette, but a white suit and different gender of the visitor instantly lowered his expectations.

"Good morning Ash, how do you feel today?" the man asked him. It was doctor Milito, who was taking care of the boy since he woke up recently.

"Pretty good, enough to already leave, I hope" Ash said with a smile.

"Let me check you, so I can tell if your healing process is finally done" the doctor said and started doing control. It took ten minutes to end.

"Alright, just by looking at you I can say that you are in good condition, I controlled your heart – it is working correctly…" the man in a white suit told the raven-haired boy who was still sitting on a bed in his hospital room and looking at him curiously. "Here I have X-ray images of your body, everything is perfect… Your wounds are healing quite well, so, since tomorrow is Christmas Day, I can release you from the hospital, so you can spend it with your family"

When Ash heard the last sentence, he sighed of relief. In some way, he was happy that he was in a coma for such a long time, because he started to hate staying in this building after only a few days. He didn`t want to know how would he survive in here if he wasn`t sleeping that long.

"Thank you doctor, for everything" the boy said, grateful. The doctor nodded at him with a smile and slowly left the room. Ash immediately jumped out of his bed and ran to the shower to wash himself. After that he quickly packed his belongings from the room and ran out of the hospital, remembering to say goodbye to all the nurses and doctors and to thank them for what they`ve done for him since he got there. He knew he owed his life to them. But there were more people that needed special thanks.

May and Serena.

If they hadn`t been so stubborn in rescuing him, he wouldn`t have escaped the adventure in Team Rocket`s base. Also, those women would always put their life on risk for him, and he deeply appreciated it, even if he didn`t like it much. He knew that they were the closest people to him, not counting his mother, of course. But he had a certain feeling for both of them. A feeling that was very unique among the feelings that he had for his other friends.

A feeling that could not be given to both of them.

And Ash knew that he had to make a choice between them. And it hurt him so badly to even think about it.

* * *

"May, can you finally wake up and help us with the preparing for Christmas?" Caroline yelled out of the kitchen, hoping that her shout would make her daughter come down the stairs. It was 10AM and the brunette still was in her room.

"It isn`t like her to sleep that long, Norman" she said to her husband, who was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper. He looked at his wife with annoyance.

"Relax honey, let her sleep a bit longer than always" he said. "Remember that the last few days she was very energetic, it is only natural that now she is sleepy and doesn`t want to get out of bed" with those words he started reading the newspaper again. Caroline nodded and returned to washing dishes from breakfast, but she could not stop thinking about her daughter and she turned off the faucet.

"I`m going to check on her" she said and before Norman could try to stop her, she was out of the kitchen, walking quickly upstairs. She knocked quietly three times, but when she got no response, she opened the door. There was no light switched on, also the blind on the window was lowered so the sun wouldn`t make its way to the room through the glass. Caroline closed the door after she went through and she slowly raised the blind, only to see May lying on the bed. The girl had her eyes opened and she was looking blankly at one point. This point was on her bookshelf, more precisely, she was looking at a small box that was standing on the bookshelf. Caroline knew what was there even without opening it.

"I knew that you weren`t sleeping, May" she said while sitting next to her daughter. Caroline looked at May and the view in front of her made her heart hurt.

May was crying.

"Oh, honey" the woman said and hugged her child with love. May sobbed quietly into her mother`s chest for quite a long time, before she was able to calm down. After that they were sitting in a complete silence, which was regularly disturbed by May`s sniffing.

"I think that you should finally tell him, sweetie" Caroline said after a while. "Keeping it in yourself is slowly destroying you."

"I… I know mum, but I don`t know if… if he feels the same about me" May sobbed again while looking at a certain box. Caroline smiled secretly.

"Even if he doesn`t love you back, it is better to not lie to him this time, don`t you think?" Caroline asked, hoping for honest answer. May nodded and got up from her bed. She walked to the bathroom to take care of her face. Caroline watched her walk away and when May closed the door, the mother stood up from bed and slowly walked to the bookshelf, on which a box was standing. She opened it and smiled at what was inside.

"Then again, after what you had done for him recently, there is no chance that he doesn`t love you" she said quietly to herself. She closed the box and left May`s room, still having a small smile on her face.

* * *

Although Ash really wanted to come to visit the Maples, he could not come there yet. He was sitting in a milk-bar, where he ordered a breakfast. It wasn`t something sophisticated , only two pancakes. He wanted to forget about his dilemma for at least a second, but it was impossible. His mind was fully occupied by thoughts about May and Serena. He was so desperate to decide what to do that he even considered talking to Brock for a moment. He quickly decided that it was a stupid idea, since he wanted it to be his own decision. He would still sit there and think, not even touching his breakfast for a longer time, if his phone didn`t start ringing. He picked it from the table and saw at the number which was calling.

It was from Kalos.

Serena.

"Hello?" Ash answered the phone call.

"Hi Ash, it`s me" Serena said, but without any life. It really scared the boy.

"Serena? Something happened?" he asked.

"No, nothing really, but I have an important message for you" she said.

"Okay, go on" Ash raised his eyebrow in curiosity.

"You see, tomorrow is the last day when you can take the challenge and battle with Elite Four and Diantha. I explained your situation to them, but the rules are very strict and they could do nothing to make even the smallest exception for you."

"I see…" Ash answered.

"I don`t know if your health condition is good enough to even think about travelling, but I felt I must tell you about it. Because I knew that the title of the champion was important for you."

"Yeah, to be honest, after winning the League I totally forgot about this part" Ash facepalmed. How could he be so ignorant to not remember about something like that?! It was probably the thing that was bothering him from the beginning of the day. "Thank you so much Serena, what would I do without you!"

"You don`t need to thank me, that`s what friends are for, right?" Serena giggled, but her voice suddenly became less emotional. "But I have to tell you one thing."

"Yeah?" Ash asked, his heart skipped a bit.

"If you beat the Elite Four and Diantha, you become the Champion of the Kalos region"

"… I think I knew about it before. What about it?" Ash asked.

"The point is, you become the champion of the KALOS region. When you beat Diantha, you will have to stay there until the next tournament, or even longer. You will have to be on every event the government want you on" Serena said. Ash felt that she was doing everything to dissuade him from the idea of challenging the current champion. And he wanted to know why.

"So, what is wrong with that? I mean, I like travelling, but it shouldn`t be a problem to just stay at one place for a longer period of time…"

"Ash, can I be honest with you?" Serena asked, her voice was shaking a little. Ash had a bad feeling about it.

"Sure, you can tell me everything" he responded.

Serena sighed quietly.

"I don`t think that it`s the best idea for you to come here"

That sentence made Ash pretty shocked.

"But… why do you think so?"

"Because I know that you should stay in Hoenn, with May. It is the best option for you, believe me." Serena sounded sad while saying this. "She loves you more than anything in this world, and you deserve such a great women like her in your life. And I know that you have a certain feelings for her too. Coming here, to Kalos, would only mean that you would live in separate places, because I don`t think that May would leave her family."

"..." Ash didn`t say anything at first, because his mind had to analyze everything he had just heard. "How… do you know about how she feels about me?" He knew about May`s feelings for him. He only wanted to know about how Serena gained this information.

"Ash… I know that she loves you, because… I`m in love with you. Since the beginning of our journey around Kalos. That`s why I was acting weirdly all the time. Maybe you weren`t thinking about it a lot, but my behavior in your last days in my homeland was awful. I was jealous of May and the level of your familiarity with her. I saw in which direction it was going and I tried to do everything to not let it happen. But what I did was making a fool out of myself. Thanks to you and May, I matured and now I see that what I really want, is you to be happy. And I know that you will be happy only with her by your side."

Ash remained silent, analyzing Serena`s words.

"And, I think that living in one country with a girl who has feelings for you isn`t a great idea, because you would often think about me and feel bad about your choice. Believe me, I really don`t want you to surrender from the battle. I want you to make a decision that you won`t regret ever in your life. That`s all, I said everything I wanted to say, think about what I said, but the last word is yours. Bye, take care" and with those words Serena hung up.

Ash put the phone in his pocket and looked at the already cold pancakes. With an uneasiness on his face he started to eat them. This day was going to be the one of the worst days of his life.

He thought about everything once more, and he was able to make a decision he had to make. He took Serena`s advice to heart and he decided to do what was best for him, probably for the first time in his life.

* * *

"Ash?" You wanted me to come here?" a voice could be heard at the biggest quay in Petalburg. This place was fantastic to be at, especially at the evening, when the sun was hiding in the sea. And Ash chose it wisely, especially for this moment.

"Yeah, I did, May" the boy responded with a weird anxiousness in his voice. May started feeling weird when she noticed his uneasy face.

"You look sad" she pointed out. "If it`s because I didn`t come to the hospital this morning, I`m sorry, I overslept today, I had a hard night. If it`s something different, feel free to tell me"

"No, it`s not about the hospital, in fact, the doctor let me out for good today morning" the boy responded to the girl. He looked at her and he immediately started understanding, how hard was this conversation going to be.

Ash looked at the waves on the sea. They were moving so peacefully and with so much grace and charm. He would always calm down while looking at them. This time, however, was different.

"To be honest, I wanted to tell you something." Ash started, not looking at her. "Today Serena told me that tomorrow is the last day when I can challenge Diantha and achieve the title of champion in Kalos. She also told me what are the responsibilities of the champion, and she revealed her true feelings for me. She also told me about yours and suggested me not to take the challenge and stay here. And I made the decision"

May listened to everything perfectly, and from smiled girl that came to the quay she turned into a bundle of nerves. In her head there were two scenarios, both of them possible to happen. She was grateful to Serena for telling Ash those words, even for telling him about her own feelings towards the boy. Sure, she was surprised at first about it, but she still wanted to reveal her secret for Ash today, so it wasn`t a big deal.

"And I decided… to not come back to Kalos to get the title…" Ash turned to her.

After hearing those words May should be overwhelmed by joy and happiness. It sounded like pretty good news for her.

But the look on Ash`s face made her think otherwise.

"… but I`m not going to stay here either."

May lowered her head and looked at the ground. She should see it coming from a long time. She nodded with understanding . She really wanted to just run away and cry on a bench under some trees. She turned to go back from where she had come there earlier, but Ash stopped her by catching her hand.

"May…" he looked deeply into her eyes. "I don`t want you to imagine any stupid things. The truth is, that I really love you both, in a way that is different than the way I love my other friends. And right now, I really can`t choose one out of you. I need some time alone to properly prepare for the right moment. I hope you understand."

"I do" May said. She smiled to him and hugged him, understanding what he meant. He nodded at her and, after waving her a goodbye, quickly walked away. She looked as he disappeared in the dark of the city with peace in her heart. Why was she so calm now?

Because she, like Serena, understood that she wanted him to be happy. And she knew that one day, she will get the answer. Even if it wasn`t going to be the answer she wants to hear, she would still wait for it.

* * *

 _All right, this story can be finally marked as done, after nearly a year. I`m pretty glad that it ended like that, and I`ll tell you why._

 _Since the beginning of the story, I really wanted it to be an Advanceshipping story. It is visible till the last chapter, but as you see, it ended in a different way that I have originally planned. I had some problems with writing the last chapter, which is, why it took so long to post it. I was thinking about this story for quite a long time, trying to decide which ending would be the best. And after talking with some people who pointed out a few things to me, I chose this ending. You can interpret it how you want, I`m not going to write more chapters explaining Ash`s choice. And there will be no sequel for this story either._

 _Since the beginning of writing this story, I wanted to create something different. This story was meant to have something, that would stand out this story from the others on this site. And I`m sure that this kind of ending is something different :D_

 _I realize that the Pokemon in this story had a poor role and I occasionally forgot about them after using them in the battles etc. I know it may look bad, but I really wanted to focus mainly on emotions and feelings of the characters. This is why Pikachu "magically" disappears somewhere, and I don`t want to edit every chapter to change it, because it would ruin my conception, which by the way was hard to work at. I spent many evenings thinking about something that could be added in this story, and I leave it to you to rate my efforts._

 _I wanted to apologize for grammar errors in the text. Those were visible mainly in the first chapters, but I rewrited them to make them look better (it doesn`t mean that there are no errors now, I`m sure that there are a lot :D). I like English, but it isn`t my native language. I`m still learning, and this story really helped me to improve my abilities. And this is the most important thing in writing._

 _I really appreciated every review from you, especially when they had some criticism in them. You really helped me in improving this story in many aspects._

 _That`s all I have to say. Thank you for reading this story and staying with me till its very end. God bless you all._


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